THE NEW LEICESTER BREED. 195 



wool which was long in the staple. A part of the counties of 

 Leicester and Warwick lies in a calcareous country favour- 

 able to the production of the shorter and finer kinds of wool ; 

 and the wool of the Old Warwickshire Sheep, in particular, 

 appears to have closely approximated to that of the modern 

 Leicesters. There is no reason, therefore, to assume, from 

 any of the characters presented by the wool of the New Lei- 

 cester Breed, that the parent stock was any other than the 

 Long-woolled Sheep of the midland counties. 



The New Leicester Sheep, though smaller in bulk of body 

 than the long-woolled races which they supplanted, are yet 

 of the larger class of Sheep with respect to weight. Their 

 limbs being shorter, and their bodies more round, compact, 

 and deep, than in the former breeds, they are of greater 

 weight in proportion to their apparent bulk. Their actual 

 size is various, depending on the wishes of breeders to pos- 

 sess larger or smaller animals, and on the fertility, natural 

 or acquired, of the districts in which they are reared. In 

 general, it may be said that the wethers weigh from 25 Ib. 

 to 35 Ib. the quarter, when fattened in their second year. 

 The wool is of medium length, having a staple of from six to 

 eight inches, and weighing about 7^ Ib. the fleece in Sheep 

 of fifteen or sixteen months old. It is too short and weak 

 to be admitted into the first class of combing wools, and, in 

 the properties which fit it for the manufacture of worsted, it 

 falls short of the wool of the older breeds. Nevertheless it 

 is more evenly grown, is soft, and of good colour, and pos- 

 sesses several properties of long wool in perfection. 



But it is neither in the size or weight of body, nor in the 

 productiveness or quality of the wool, that the real value of 

 the New Leicester Breed consists. Its value and superiority 

 are to be found in its more perfect form, and aptitude to 

 fatten at an early age, in which respects it surpasses all the 

 other varieties of Long-woolled Sheep which have been culti- 

 vated in this country, or naturalized in any part of Europe. 

 The New Leicester Sheep can, under the ordinary manage- 



