156 THE SHEEP. 



that it had been indigenous beyond all memorial to the dis- 

 tricts which it inhabited. It may not unreasonably be in- 

 ferred to be a variety of that widely-diffused race of soft- 

 woolled Sheep which formerly extended from the mountains 

 and islands of Scotland to the mountains of Wales, and 

 which was probably in possession of the earliest Celtic in- 

 habitants of the British islands. From its diminutive size, 

 its patience of scanty food, and the lightness of its fleece, we 

 may conclude that it was the native of countries of a low 

 degree of fertility, probably of districts of forest, which, until 

 cleared of their wood, are always unproductive with respect 

 to the nutritive grasses. The county of Hereford, it is to be 

 observed, though now rendered rich and beautiful by art, 

 was formerly covered with woods, and interspersed with ex- 

 tensive commons and chases, which long remained waste and 

 barren. "We are not therefore to conclude, that, because the 

 country is now fertilized, it was not formerly suited to the 

 maintenance of a race of small Sheep. The nature of the 

 wool of this breed, too, which was noted beyond any other 

 for its fineness, caused the breed to be preserved unmixed, 

 and with nearly its pristine characters, long after the county 

 of Hereford had become capable of supporting larger ani- 

 mals. 



The wool of the Ryeland breed was long regarded as the 

 finest that the British islands produced. The ancient city 

 of Leominster, being surrounded by a country producing 

 this kind of wool, and being the market-town to which it was 

 brought for sale, gave name to the wool of the country, which 

 was termed Lemster Wool, or Lemster Ore. Drayton, who 

 wrote in the reign of Henry VIII., when comparing the wool 

 of the Cotteswold Hills with the lighter fleeces of Lemster, 

 bears testimony to the superior fineness of the latter. Cam- 

 den, describing the town of Leominster, " which," says he, 

 " was also called Leon Minster, and Lyon's Monastery, of a 

 Lyon that appeared to a religious man in a vision," says, 

 " The greatest name and fame is of the wool in the territories 



