THE PENISTONE BREED. 119 



large, but weigh the least perhaps in proportion to their offal 

 and bulk of body, of any sheep of this country. 



It may excite surprise that a breed possessing such charac- 

 ters should have maintained its place in the centre of Eng- 

 land, in the vicinity of some of the most opulent towns, and 

 on the borders of districts the most celebrated for their 

 breeds of Sheep. The Penistone district is, however, of 

 peculiar characters. It is high, yet yields a plentiful coarse 

 herbage of heath and intermixed grasses. It is scarcely 

 sufficiently fertile, or sufficiently improved, for the Leicesters, 

 and is just such a district as would appear to be suited to 

 support a coarse race of native Sheep. Farmers have found 

 these animals to be hardy, and adapted to the country in 

 which they are naturalized, and hence have been disposed to 

 overlook their defects. Yet a gentle crossing with more 

 improved breeds, might have corrected their more palpable 

 defects, without rendering them too fine for their situation. 

 It may be expected, however, that this coarse unthrifty breed 

 will disappear, either by the effects of crossing, or by the sub- 

 stitution of superior varieties. A breed which seems well 

 suited for this district, at least so long as it remains in its 

 present uncultivated state, is the Cheviot, which is calculated 

 to thrive well in a country of heaths with intermixed grasses. 

 Cheviot flocks have indeed been introduced into the Peni- 

 stone district, but the farmers dislike them on account of their 

 smallness of size, not considering that a greater number of 

 these smaller sheep could be maintained, and would yield a 

 larger produce of mutton with less of offal, on the same space 

 of ground. The pure Southdown s would be out of place in 

 these rugged pastures, which are not adapted to a race the 

 natives of a country of short and fine herbage. Still more 

 unsuitable are other breeds which have been employed to 

 cross these coarse animals, as, for example, the Ryeland, one 

 of the prettiest little breeds in the country, but differing in 

 all its characters from the Penistone. 



