FOREST SHEEP 201 



to have been the light-framed, grey or tan faced, 

 short-woolled forest sheep, which in the earliest times 

 occupied the more elevated lands throughout the 

 Midlands and South of England, extending also into 

 Wales and perhaps now represented in its least 

 modified form by some of the Welsh mountain sheep. 

 Next we find that a century ago the Ryelands of 

 Hereford (poor forest land south of the Wye) were 

 occupied by a white-faced hornless breed celebrated 

 for the fineness of its wool and the quality of its 

 mutton, and that the Clun Forest, a great stretch of 

 open elevated country round the head waters of the 

 Teme, also carried the same white-faced breed, 

 whereas the Long Mynd sheep across the valley were 

 both black-faced and horned. The Ryeland sheep 

 have preserved their characteristics unimpaired ; they 

 remain strictly in their own country, and though they 

 were once nearly extinct they form to-day one of the 

 most distinct of English sheep breeds, and the one 

 possessing the finest wool, due, as some breeders think, 

 to a strong infusion of Merino blood, though others 

 consider them as a particularly unmixed race. But in 

 the west of the forest country crossing has been rife, 

 and it is difficult to be certain how the breeds have 

 been built up ; at any rate, in the Clun Forest and 

 in the neighbouring Kerry Hill, and again in the 

 Radnor Forest we have a race of small hill sheep 

 weighing up to 15 Ib. or 20 Ib. per quarter, of 

 excellent quality as mutton and with very fine wool. 

 The tails are left long, and the wether mutton, dressed 

 with a tuft of wool at the end of the tail, is sold as 

 Welsh, though it is considerably larger than the true 

 mountain mutton. 



The Kerry Hill sheep are now recognized as a 

 breed to the extent that they have a flock book, a 



