120 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



By careful selections and judicious crossings, the Southdowns 

 have been much increased in size and improved in quality. 



The qualities of good sheep have been thus stated. Head 

 small, neck thin and short, eyes gentle and bright, breast and 

 shoulders wide and broad, straight and deep carcase or barrel, 

 feet and bones small, joints short, muscles plump and full, 

 skin a dark-red or slate-color, wool of a yellow white, curly, of 

 moderate length and thickly set, the fat and flesh soft, with 

 some degree of firmness in handling, the countenance pleasant 

 and inclined to quietness. Good judges avoid sheep that have 

 short and thick heads, neck long, thick and concave in the 

 higher part, carcases long and thin, chests contracted, flesh 

 thin, feet large, flesh hard in handling, wool coarse and hempy, 

 and countenance unpleasant. 



The Lincolnshire breed are larger than the original South- 

 downs, the former weighing about twenty-five per cent, more 

 than the latter. It is quite likely that the original diflerence 

 does not now exist. The wool of these animals is often from 

 ten to eighteen inches iii length,, and yields twelve to eighteen 

 pounds to the fleecel 



The Leicester is a variety rather than a breed. The live 

 weight of a Leicester is from one hundred and fifty to one hun- 

 dred aild seventy-five pounds for ewes of three years, and 

 wethers often weigh two hundred pounds at two years of age. 

 If value is put upon the head and pluck, skin and tallow, as 

 well as upon the wool and flesh, the loss in weight by killing 

 and dressing is from ten to seventeen per cent. The Leicester 

 is a long-woolled sheep, with flesh more finely grained than any 

 other long-wool variety, and it is supposed to be the product of 

 a cross between the Lincolnshire and the Ryeland. When the 

 Spanish Merinos were introduced into England, a resemblance 

 was observed between them and the native Ryeland, which led 

 to the conjecture that the latter were really Spanish sheep, 

 introduced by the Phoenicians many centuries before, when 

 tliose early navigators had colonies in Spain and Britain. 



The breed of sheep now most highly prized in Massachusetts, 

 is the Oxfordshire Downs. This, it is claimed, is the product 

 of a cross between the Cotswold and the pure Southdowns. 



The breed was introduced into the State by Mr. Fay, of Lynn. 

 It is however to be said that at the close of the last century the 

 pure Cotswold was a mythical rather than a known variety of 



