146 NEWFOUNDLAND 



animal for breakfast one morning, its value seemed to be 

 about three shillings, and dear at that. 



Nothing has struck me so forcibly in Newfoundland as 

 the miserable quality of their sheep, and the fact that a 

 considerable part of the fertile coast-line would be made an 

 excellent land for sheep-raising if the right kinds were intro- 

 duced. It has been my lot to wander much in the barren 

 northern lands of Iceland, Norway, the Hebrides, Shetland 

 and Orkney, and in these wind-swept places I have seen 

 flocks of different varieties of sheep in a flourishing condition 

 — in spots, too, far more unsuitable in every way than the 

 south and west coasts of Newfoundland. In most cases the 

 farmers of these inhospitable wilds depend almost entirely 

 on their sheep, and could not live without them. What is 

 to be seen in Newfoundland ? Only here and there, in widely 

 separated places, one finds a few miserable sheep of some 

 German extraction, carrying such a poor quality of wool 

 and flesh as hardly to be worth the raising. Now, what is 

 wanted is that the Government should take the matter in 

 hand — for the Newfoundlanders themselves are much too 

 apathetic and ignorant about such matters — and import a 

 few flocks of the following sheep : — 



The Highland ram of Scotland, which carries a mag- 

 nificent coat of wool capable of withstanding the severest 

 winter provided the snow is not too deep ; Welsh sheep, 

 Hebridean sheep, Shetland sheep, Icelandic sheep. All these 

 varieties are extremely hardy, and would, I am sure, do well 

 in the comparatively sheltered bays of the south and west coast. 



One of the first things that would have to be done would 

 be the shooting of ownerless dogs, and stringent laws would 

 have to be enacted that the owners of dogs must keep their 

 dogs in check and under proper supervision. A man who 



