London to John O' Croat's. 113 



too valuable to run the terrible gauntlet of oil-cake, 

 bean and barley-meal, through which they must 

 flounder on in cruel obesity to the prize. Especially 

 is this the case with breeding animals. Mr. Webb's 

 experience at his first trial of the process, will illustrate 

 its tendencies and results. Of the nine shearling ewes 

 he " fed " for the Cambridge Show, he lost four, and 

 only raised two or three lambs from the rest. At the 

 Exhibition of 1841, at Liverpool, he won three out 

 of four of the prizes offered by the Royal Agricultural 

 Society for Southdowns, or any other short-wooled 

 sheep ; two out of four offered at Bristol, in 1842, and 

 three out of four at Derby, in 1843. But here again 

 he over-fed two of his best sheep, under the inexorable 

 rule of fat, which exercises such despotic sway over 

 these annual competitions, and was obliged to kill 

 them before the show. It will suffice to show the loss 

 he incurred by this costly homage to Tallow, to give 

 his own words on the subject : " I had refused 180 

 guineas for the hire of the two sheep for the season, 

 I also quite destroyed the usefulness of two other aged 

 sheep by over-feeding them last year. Neither of 

 them propogated through the season, and I have had 

 each of them killed in consequence, which has so 

 completely tired me of over-feeding that I never intend 

 exhibiting another aged ram, unless I greatly alter my 



