126 BRITISH BREEDS. 



sess a sweet herbage, and thougli formerly consisting mostly 

 of bleak wastes, have been latterly much improved. Cam- 

 den speaks of the breed as having fine and soft wool. Dray- 

 ton writes of its fleeces as more abundant than those of Sa- 

 rum and Leominster. Speed, writing 200 years ago, speaks 

 of the wool as similar to the Ryeland, and rivalling that of 

 Spain. Indeed, some imagine it was the origin of the Me- 

 rino sheep, as in 1464 Edward IV. permitted a number to 

 be exported to Spain, where they greatly increased and 

 spread. Spain, however, before this, was celebrated for the 

 fineness of its wool. Markham, in the time of Queen Eliz- 

 abeth, speaks of the Cotswold as having long wool, and Mr. 

 Marshall and other writers consider that they have always 

 been a long-wooled breed. It is difficult to reconcile these 

 difl'erences of opinion ; for my own part, I am disposed to 

 think that the present are the descendants of the old race ; 

 be this as it may, we have no evidence, either oral, written, 

 or traditional, of the change having been made. 



The Cotswold is a large breed of sheep, with a long and 

 abundant fleece, and the ewes are very prolific and good 

 nurses. Formerly these bred only on the hills, and fatted in 

 the valleys of the Severn and the Thames ; but with the 

 enclosure of the Cotswold hills, and the improvement of 

 their cultivation, they have been reared and fattened in the 

 same district. They have been extensively crossed with 

 the Leicester sheep, by which their size and fleece have 

 been somewhat diminished, but their carcases considerably 

 improved, and their maturity rendered earlier. The wethers 

 are now sometimes fattened at fourteen months, when they 

 weigh from 15 lbs. to 24 lbs. per quarter, and at two years 

 old increase to 20 lbs. or 30 lbs. The wool is strong, mel- 

 low, and of good color, though rather coarse, six to eight 

 inches in length, and from 7 to 8 lbs. the fleece. The supe- 

 rior hardihood of the improved Cotswold over the Leicester, 

 and their adaptation to common treatment, together with the 

 prolific nature of the ewes and their abundance of milk, 

 have rendered them in many places rivals of the new Lei- 

 cester, and have obtained for them of late years more atten- 

 tion to their selection and general treatment, under which 

 management still further improvement appears very probable. 

 They have also been used in crossing other breeds, and have 

 been mixed with the Hampshire Downs. It is, indeed, the 

 improved Cotswold that, under the term New or Improved 



