" SHEEP IN SCOTLAND 47 



Item thar wilbe of tendit woll this yeir of your scheep Fyve stane. It 

 will gif ilk stane, vij schillings and that is ane gud price for Buchane woll 

 considering the ter 1 that is in it. 



The demand for Scottish wool in the following century 

 in countries beyond the borders is some index to the im- 

 provement that had taken place, and to the estimation in 

 which the Scottish product was held. From a charter found 

 in the Charter Chest of the Earl of Mar and Kelly, Professor 

 Hume Brown quotes the average annual exports for the years 

 1611 to 1614 "Of Woll, 10,374 staneis wechte at ^5 the 

 stane, ^5 1^,870." 



While in most countries and on the mainland of Scotland 

 throughout the centuries, selection was constantly made with 

 the object of attaining a high standard of white wool, for no 

 other reason it would seem than that fashion favoured white- 

 ness, a curious and reverse tendency is to be noted in the 

 island flocks where fashion favoured coats of many colours. 

 In 1794, Dr James Anderson wrote : 



In all the remote parts of Scotland and the isles where sheep have been 

 in a great measure neglected, and allowed to breed promiscuously, without 

 any selection, there is to be found a prodigious diversity of colours; and, 

 among others, dun sheep, or those of brownish colour tending to an obscure 

 yellow, are not infrequent... It is for this reason, and to save the trouble of 

 dyeing, that the poor people in the Highlands propagate black, and russet 

 and brown, and other coloured sheep, more than in any country where the 

 wool is regularly brought to market. 



The tendency of fashion to guide the influence of man and to 

 regulate the colour of the fleece is still dbminant in Shetland 

 and amongst the breeders of Shetland sheep. Three types 

 of Shetland shawls are in demand a brown, a white and a 

 grey, the last colour being also used as an edging to shawls 

 of one of the other colours. The result has been that owing 

 to deliberate selection for the purpose of meeting this de- 

 mand three colours of fleece have come to predominate in 

 the Shetland breed a "black" or brown variety (known 

 as " moorit," said to be from a Norse word signifying 

 "moor-red"), which still retains the colour of the primitive 

 domesticated breed, a fine snowy white variety, and a bluish 

 grey variety known as "Sheila," having. longer and coarser 

 wool. 



1 ter, probably the Aberdeenshire dialect word for turf; and in this 

 connection, therefore, signifying grass, earth or, generally, dirt. 



