MODERN SHEEP I BREEDS AND MANAGEMENT. 



less, most pleasing. The transformation of the common stock, 

 indigenous to certain localities in the counties of Shropshire and 

 Staffordshire, England, into the beautiful living picture the mod- 

 ern Shropshire presents at the great Chicago International, and 

 other famous shows, was certainly no haphazard work of the ignor- 

 ant or unthoughtful, but, on the contrary, the result of the deepest 

 thought of genuine improvers they who have proved themselves 

 past-masters in the art and science of breeding and molding flesh 

 into form. 



The Morfe Common sheep, or its relations who have figured 





Up-standing Type of Shropshire Yearling Ram. Bred by Sir Richard Cooper, England. 



in the history of the now popular Shropshire, was not always 

 beautiful or built upon anything like beautiful lines, judging from 

 the vantage by which we judge modern Shropshire type. The 

 Morfe Common sheep took its name from a common or wild tract 

 of land, known by that name, situated at no great distance from 

 the banks of the beautiful river Severn and the exceedingly pretty 

 town of Bridgnorth, England. Not only was Morfe Common a 

 very wild tract of land, but a very poor one, of some 4,000 acres. 

 It is but a short time since, comparatively speaking, when the 

 black-faced, or speckle-faced, stilty-legged, semi-wild, but hardy 

 and valuable-fleeced denizens of this common, with an occasional 



