THE NEW LEICESTER BREED. 191 



then cultivated, and possessed of a greater aptitude to fatten 

 and arrive at early maturity ; and the means which he em- 

 ployed were, breeding from the individuals, possessed of the 

 properties sought for, and rendering these properties perma- 

 nent in the offspring. It is known that, by continued selec- 

 tion of the male and female parents in a given number of 

 animals, the characters deemed defects can, under certain 

 limits, be removed, and the acquired properties rendered per- 

 manent in the progeny by continued reproduction with one 

 another. The principle that the virtues of parents are com- 

 municated to their young, was not newly discovered ; but it 

 was reserved for Bakewell to apply it in the case of the ani- 

 mals used for human food in a new manner, and to produce 

 more remarkable results than had before been arrived at. 

 He perfectly understood the relation which exists between 

 the external form of an animal and its aptitude to become fat 

 in a short time. He saw that this relation did not depend 

 upon size, nor, in the case of the Sheep, on the power of the 

 individual to yield a large quantity of wool. He therefore 

 departed from the practice of all former breeders of the Long- 

 woolled Sheep, who had regarded size and abundant growth 

 of wool as primary properties in the parents. Holding bulk 

 of body, and the produce of the fleece, to be secondary pro- 

 perties, Bakewell directed especial attention to the external 

 form which indicates the property of yielding the largest 

 quantity of muscle and fat, with the least bone, and what is 

 usually termed offal. He aimed, too, it is said, at producing 

 the fat on the most valuable parts ; but this is merely a sub- 

 sidiary property, dependent upon general harmony of con- 

 formation. Progressively perfecting his animals by skilful 

 selection, he necessarily continued to breed from his own 

 stock, and did not scruple to connect together animals the 

 nearest allied in blood to one another. This system, con- 

 tinually pursued, not only gave a permanency to the charac- 

 ters imprinted on his sheep, constituting a breed, in the pro- 

 per sense of the term, but tended to produce that delicacy of 



