120 Essay on Sheep. 



only be advantageously maintained on rich and 

 luxuriant pastures, and an ample supply of suc- 

 culent food during the winter. Experience 

 has taught us that rich pastures will add to the 

 length and quality of wool on our native sheep, 

 and that bad keeping will diminish it. With- 

 out attention to this circumstance, the long- 

 woolled sheep have been transferred from the 

 fens and marshes of England and Holland to 

 our dry, short, sweet pastures; from which it 

 was expected that, labouring under a thick coat 

 of long wool, and contending with our sum- 

 mer sun, they should be able to fill their large 

 carcases. Not having pastures adapted to their 

 size and their habits, they could not subsist but 

 by gradually accommodating themselves to 

 ours. This necessarily occasioned a diminution, 

 first in the quality of the wool, and next in the 

 size of their descendants; besides, that it was 

 very rare to obtain the full bred sheep, both 

 rams and ewes, and to preserve them unmixed. 

 If the rams bred with our ewes, their progeny 

 would soon be reduced to the size of the ewes; 

 directly, because of the mixture, and, indi- 

 rectly, from the ewes not being able to afford 

 nourishment to a larger stock than nature de- 

 signed her to supj)ort, without the most uncom- 

 mon care in feeding her w^hile she gave milk. 



