4,6o History of the Jnthor*s 



CHAPTER II. 



Carcase of the Merino-Ryeland Sbcep. Size. Superior profit and convenience of 

 small Breeds of Sheep. Form, and other Circumstances, most connected ivitb 

 a Propensity to fatten ; constituting what is called Beauty. Resolvable into 

 Fitness. Nezv Leicester Sheep, supposed to be Models of Beauty, tried by this 

 Test. Merino Breed singularly defective in that respect; and why. Already 

 greatly improved in England, and capable of being made sufficiently perfect. 

 Merino-Ryeland Cross better in Form than the pure Merino. In Crossing^ 

 the Posterity follow the Sire in Skin and Wool, and the Dam in Carcase. 

 Capacity of fattening. Number of Sheep kept, and extent of Land. Effect of 

 Breeding in and in. Hardy Sheep. Rams generally horned. Seldom two 

 Lambs at a Birth, Skin like that of the pure Merino. 



In point of size, niy Merino-Ryeland sheep are at present, equal to the Ryeland. 

 There is no subject which has more divided agriculturists than the question as to 

 the comparative profitableness of the larger or smaller breeds of animals. The 

 farmer, when he can produce to the butcher, or exhibit at the market or the fair, 

 an ox pre-eminent in fatness and size, conceives himself to be far elevated above 

 his fellows, and considers the question as ultimately decided in favour of the larger 

 breed. Nearly of the same rate of intellectual power is the journalist, who gravely 

 tells us, that a large animal most certainly be more valuable than a small one, 

 because it sells for more. I fear that this vain and precipitate conclusion has been 

 too much promoted by the decisions of well-meaning societies and clubs, the terms 

 ©t whose premiums sometimes rather go to abet fashionable prejudices, than to 

 compare and distinguish between dubious facts. With regard to what is called 

 fatting, the grand question is, which breed of animals, or which abstract form or 

 qualities in any breed, converts into the greatest quantity of equally good flesh a 

 given quantity of the same food in the same time : and so far as this point alone 

 is concerned, it matters not whether the flesh be on one animal or on three. It 

 oughi, therefore, to be an indispensable condition of every premium for fat cattle, 

 that the actual quantity and quality of food, and the expencc and time of fatting, 



