1 8 MODERN SHEEP : BREEDS AND MANAGEMENT. 



smoothness and fullness of crops and twists, together with the 

 sweetest disposition ever dispensed to our 

 domestic friends, constitute such harmonious 

 blending of the beautiful with the useful as 

 makes it extremely infatuating and worthy of 

 the stanzas of the poet. 



Further, what gives us a more striking, 

 truthful or practical definition of the word 

 noble, on the domestic side of the brute crea- 

 tion, than the Shropshire ram, whose compact- 

 Mr. T. s. M negg of form ig ever liable to deceive us as to 



his correct weight, and whose masculine character and mutton 

 qualities stand out at all points of his anatomy, so much so that 

 we cannot fail to recognize in him something of an Adonis and a 

 Hercules in the animal kingdom. We may even 

 go further in our musings. What presents a 

 more beautiful pastoral effect or a more beauti- 

 ful and harmonious combination of beauty and 

 utility than a well-bred 1 and well-cared-for flock 

 of Shropshire ram lambs, or, in fact, such of 

 any other of our improved mutton breeds? 

 Watch them feeding in the paddocks, in the 

 ^ early hours of a fall morning, when roots and 

 forage crops are theirs in endless variety, and 

 oil-cake and corn are supplied them in such quantities as is best 

 suited to their proper development, which they literally shovel 

 from their troughs after their appetites have been whetted by the 

 cool, bracing breezes of the morning, when their voices are chang- 

 ing from the shrill baby-like voice of the lamb to the sonorous 

 voice of the adult, and masculinity is cropping out all over their 

 bodies. Those who cannt)t see a picture in them fall very short 

 of being connoisseurs of the beautiful in pastoral life. 



Mr. Preece, of Shrewsbury, once paid the following .charming 

 tribute to the Shropshire: "It's a farmer's sheep, a rent-paying 

 sheep, a tenant's sheep. It's a money-making sheep, wool-produc- 

 ing, mutton -carrying sheep. It's a bank, a save-all, a frugal-living 

 and quick-fattening hardy sheep." An admirer of the breed once 

 said : "They carry a leg at each corner." He might have said they 

 carry nearly two legs at each corner in comparing them with our 

 common native stock. 



That eminent authority on sheep, Professor Wrightson, of the 

 Downton Agricultural .College, England, remarks, in one of his 

 comprehensive works, that it has been humorously said of this 

 sheep by its admirers that it is so thrifty that in looking for grass 

 they turn the stones over which lie scattered on the surface of the 

 clover fields. 



The evolution of the Shropshire has been swift but, neverthe- 



