WELSH SHEEP 331 



ing the whole of the heart of Wales. In the main the 

 Welsh hills are grass rather than heather clad, and are 

 enclosed by wire fences into sheepwalks of from 400 

 to 2000 acres, even upon the most craggy and barren 

 summits of North Wales. The Welsh sheep are small 

 and slow growing, and at four years old should yield 

 legs of mutton weighing not more than 6 lb., whose 

 excellence lies in quality and not in size. The sheep 

 are supposed to be " acclimatized " to their own farms, 

 and should change hands with them, but no custom of 

 excessive valuation for the acclimatization of the flock 

 has grown up in Wales as it has in the Highlands. 

 As a rule the flock is moved off the hills in October, 

 going back in April to lamb, though where the sheep- 

 walk is not too elevated the wethers may be left up for 

 the winter. At three years old the wether lambs are 

 fattened out, the best practice being to give them a 

 season of grazing on the richer grass of the lowlands 

 before putting them on the turnips. The older custom, 

 which still yields the finest mutton, was to fatten them 

 in their fourth year only on grass, for the true Welsh 

 sheep should not be fat : " The valley sheep were 

 fatter, but the mountain sheep were sweeter." Men 

 who do not occupy hill land for breeding buy in 

 mountain ewes and cross them with a Kerry Hill or 

 Wiltshire ram to get earlier and larger lambs for 

 fattening ; or, again, they may buy in early summer 

 wethers from some of the more elevated districts where 

 there is no grass that will bring stock into a state for 

 market. 



In that district most of the land was rented, rents 

 running from 2os. an acre to a little higher. A few 

 men owned their own holdings, but our host had a 

 strong opinion that the worst farmers were the small 

 men who owned their own land, because as owner a 

 22 



