130 MODERN SHEEP: BREEDS AND MANAGEMENT. 



shades known locally as murrat and sheila. The ewes are generally 

 hornless, but the rams are often horned. As mothers, the ewes are 

 particularly careful of their lambs, and have usually an abundant 

 supply of milk. The fine wool of the Shetland sheep is a very 

 valuable asset to the owner, being always in demand a't home for 

 hand manufacture, and also for export to Scotland. The average 

 weight of a fleece is about two pounds; it is not clipped, but 

 pulled off by hand, and when taken at the proper time it peels off 

 easily. This breed is used with great success for crossing pur- 

 poses, especially if a better pasture be provided; and their deep- 

 milking properties make them very valuable as mothers. The 

 produce is usually exported to Scotland as lambs. Cheviot, Black- 

 faced and Leicester rams are used for crossing. Cheviot and Black- 

 faced one-year-old ewes are also imported from Scotland for cross- 

 ing with the Leicester tup, for half-bred lambs. One or two small 

 flocks are kept for breeding pure Cheviots. The lambs are sent 

 to Aberdeen market every year in the month of September. The 

 Blackfaced breed is much hardier than the Cheviot, though not 

 so strong as the Shetland or native sheep. They chiefly feed on 

 the hills, and generally give plenty of milk to their la-mbs in the 

 spring. The Cheviots graze in the low-lying farms." 



THE LARZAC SHEEP. 



In and around the little town of Roquefort in the French 

 department of the Landes, which 'has been described as a dreary 

 waste of shifting sands, where the shepherds walk on stilts to 

 tend their flocks, the manufacture of "Roquefort" is carried on 

 from the Larzac breed of sheep, which are raised there in the 

 thousands for cheese production. The soil produces a scanty 

 growth of coarse grasses, but this defect is met by crops of alfalfa 

 and other fodder plants. The aromatic vegetation natural to the 

 district imparts the flavor for which this cheese is renowned. The 

 sheep are almost worthless to the butcher and their wool is of little 

 value. Attempts have been made to improve the fleece by crossing 

 with the Merino, but with such disastrous results to the milking 

 properties of the sheep that the practice has been abandoned. 

 Larzac sheep resemble miniature milch cows and have the protrud- 

 ing hips and shoulder blades, large paunch, deep udder and narrow 

 chest of the dairy cow. The number of Larzac sheep in and around 

 Roquefort is somewhere about 500,000, of which more than half 

 are milch ewes. Roquefort cheese is a local commodity, said to be 

 impossible to produce elsewhere. Reasons for this are said to be 

 the influence of the soil and the peculiar rocky caves in which the 

 cheese is stored for ripening. Returns from individual ewes vary. 

 About thirty pounds of cheese is about the average from the flock, 



