THE NEW LEICESTER BREED. 197 



fell upon the owner. The whole system manifested a won- 

 derful degree of confidence and mutual good faith, and con- 

 tributed, in an essential degree, to the diffusion of the new 

 breed. Contemporaries and successors of Mr Bakewell 

 adopted the same plan, and the sums expended by distant 

 breeders in procuring, by this simple mean, the new breed of 

 which Leicester was the centre, were surprisingly great. 

 Up to the present time the practice has been carried on by 

 breeders of the first distinction, some of whom acquired the 

 unrivalled stock of Bakewell after his death, and are under- 

 stood to have preserved it unmixed to the present hour. Nor 

 was this system long confined to the county of Leicester, but 

 it extended to other parts of the kingdom. Mr Culley, who 

 had been a pupil of Bake well's, early established it on the 

 large scale in the north of England, in the county of North- 

 umberland, and various breeders, whose stock had acquired 

 the necessary breeding and reputation, adopted it ; so that 

 there was scarcely a district of the Long-woolled Sheep in 

 which one or more breeders did not pursue the practice of 

 letting rams. Not only did the system facilitate the diffu- 

 sion of the new breed, but it contributed in an eminent de- 

 gree to maintain its purity and goodness. It even enabled 

 a certain class of breeders to direct attention to the rearing 

 of rams as a distinct profession, and thus created a division 

 of labour in the practice of breeding singularly conducive to 

 its perfection. 



The formation of the New Leicester Breed of Sheep may 

 be said to form an era in the economical history of the do- 

 mestic animals, and may well confer distinction on the indi- 

 vidual who had talent to conceive, and fortitude to perfect, 

 the design. The result was not only the creation of a breed 

 by art, but the establishment of principles which are of uni- 

 versal application in the production of animals for human 

 food. It has shewn that there are other properties than 

 size, and the kind and abundance of the wool, which render 

 a race of Sheep profitable to the breeder ; that a disposition 



