1 80 Saddle and Sirloin. 



Mr. Bruere came to Braithwaite about nineteen 

 years ago, after spending fourteen years at Aggle- 

 thorpe in Coverdale. His Booth devotion dates back 



Leicester and Teeswater, but there has been no "crossing out" for 

 many years. A tendency to feather down below the hocks is avoided as 

 much as possible in the rams, and so is too much wool on the head. 

 The heaviest woolled sheep are not chosen for the moor, but rather 

 those with a light ringlet staple. 



Almost every farmer in Wensleydale who has a little lowland keeps 

 a few "good-breed ewes" of the sort, which they put to rams with the 

 biggest fleece they can find. Many of them are also bought about Ask- 

 rigg Midsummer Fair, but the best are kept back until later in the year. 

 This "Blue-cap" sort, as many term them, came into special notice 

 some seven-and-twenty years ago, when one of them by a pure Leicester 

 from a half- Leicester and Teeswater was shown at the Liverpool Meet- 

 ing of the Royal Agricultural Society. In shape and make he was a 

 pure Leicester, but he was thought rather too big. 



The ewes which the " Mug Leicester" follows on the moors are prin- 

 cipally brought as gimmers to Askrigg Market, from Lanarkshire, 

 and have fetched as much as 45^. each. Such is the eagerness of the 

 farmers in the district, that they go the day before to meet the droves, 

 and buy them up before they see "the hill." The Craven fanners 

 have the longest purses, and hence the small dalesman have to be 

 content with their leavings. The "shot ewes" do not come from 

 Scotland until the autumn, and are bought for making fat lambs in the 

 lowlands. 



" Masham lambs," or the half-bred produce of the "Mug Leicester" 

 and the Scotch ewes on the moor, are generally bought by dealers and 

 resold at York Market for Derbyshire and the Midland Counties, as 

 well as for many districts of the East and West Ridings. They are 

 first put on the stubbles after harvest, and these, if late, always affect 

 their price, which has ranged from iBs. to 35 s. for the best. The Moor 

 ewes generally run there for four or five years, and if a ram suits them, 

 no money will tempt his owner, and he is kept till he is almost a 

 skeleton. Sometimes these half-bred or "mule " gimmers are crossed 

 again with the " Mug Leicester" for fat lambs or stores, and in weight 

 of wool and carcase they run the Leicester hard if well done to through- 

 out. The half-bred ewe generally breeds and nurses well, but she is 

 seldom kept more than two years on the moor ; and after one crop of 

 lambs on the lowlands she goes off fat to the butcher. "The Swale- 

 dale lambs" are another and a very hardy sort, between the " Mug 

 Leicester" and the native horned sheep, which abound in Swaledale, 

 Colsterdale, Dallowgill, and Akengarth, &c. , and have close short coats 

 and a hard touch. They go to the wildest parts of Derbyshire at very 

 much lower prices than the lambs from the Scotch ewes, and are not 

 nearly such good feeders as shearlings. Prize Essay (H. H. D.), Royal 

 Agricultural Journal, 1868. 



