SHEEP AND PIGS 139 



staple." These were pasture sheep, and their wool was coarse in 

 quality. The Yorkshire breed was " of reasonable bigge bone, but 

 of a staple rough and hairie." Welsh sheep were to be " praised 

 only in the dish, for they are the sweetest mutton." The Lincoln- 

 shire salt marshes bore the largest animals ; but " their legges and 

 bellies are long and naked, and their staple is coarser than any 

 other." Mortimer practically repeats Markham's list. But he adds 

 one significant remark. Speaking of Lincolns and the coarseness 

 of their wool, he says : " they are lately much amended in their 

 Breed." Some local pioneer of Bake well and his Leicesters was 

 already attempting the improvement of Lincolns. Both Markham 

 and Mortimer condemn horned sheep, and advise buyers to choose 

 animals with plenty of bone. Both also repeat the warning of Fitz- 

 herbert and Tusser that on open-field farms lambs must be timed to 

 fall in January. 



Pigs naturally take a prominent place in the books of " Rustick 

 Authors." They are, says Markham, " troublesome, noysome, 

 unruly, and great ravenours," yet they are " the Husbandmans 

 Best Scavenger, and the Huswifes most wholesome sinke," and, " in 

 the dish, so lovely and so wholesome, that all other faults may be 

 borne with." Mascall quotes as a proverb the common saying : 

 " The hog is never good but vvhen he is in the dish." The natural 

 cleanliness of the animal is strongly urged by all the seventeenth 

 century writers. As to breed, no English county could be said to 

 have a better sort than any other. But Markham thinks the best 

 pigs are raised in Leicestershire, some parts of Northamptonshire, 

 and the clay countries bordering on Leicestershire. As to colour, he 

 recommends white or " sanded," or black. But these last are said 

 to be rare. Pied pigs he considers to be more subject to measles. 

 Both he and Mortimer attribute the superiority of Leicestershire 

 and the surrounding districts to the great quantities of beans 

 and pulse which were raised in those counties, and Mortimer adds 

 that the pigs from those parts of the country were mostly sold in 

 London for use at sea. 



At the Restoration, the greatest need of English farming was 

 the leadership of practical men, possessed of the leisure, the educa- 

 tion, and the capital, to test by experiments the value of a mass 

 of theoretical advice, to adopt new crops, introduce new methods, 

 improve the live-stock of the country. Such pioneers were found, 

 at a later date, among the large landowners. In 1660 they were 



