354 Saddle and Sirloin. 



the taint, and in less than a month it had gone through 

 nearly the whole herd. In the height of its violence 

 it seemed to obey some subtle law, as while it swept 

 all the east side of one house, two Alderneys on the 

 west side never suffered at all. Even when it attacked 

 the first in a row, it did not go on by rotation, but 



was in the way, and the bridge gate was strongly barricaded ; but the 

 Lonk bided his time till a canal-boat sailed past, and then jumping on 

 to its deck, cleared the canal at twice. The story is true enough, and, 

 as our informant naively added, " What possible inducement could avian 

 have to lie about a Lonk ?" 



Both ewes and lambs are very hardy, and a little cow near Skipton 

 might once be seen suckling four cades, and as proud of them as 

 if they were calves. Except on the fell tops, the lambing begins about 

 March 20th. Most of the ewes lamb on the enclosed ground below the 

 hill, and stay there three weeks. They are not especially hardy, and 

 require to be wintered pretty well with hay, if it is a snowy season. 

 Fell life for a certain portion of the year is essential to the Lonks, as 

 the heather gives them bone, and acts as an antidote to foot-root. The 

 hoggs are generally kept down in the lowlands from September to 

 April, and those which are meant for store or Christmas shows are 

 " fed from the post," and scarcely ever see the hill. For lean wethers 

 the quotations range according to quality from 1/. to \l. 10s., and for 

 fat from 2/. iar. to 3/. Mr. Jonathan Peel has often proved at the 

 Smithfield Club what sheep fed. below the hill could do, as his pen of 

 three prize shearling wethers once averaged 2i5lbs. each, when they 

 were weighed on October 25th, and their clip on April 4th had averaged 

 1 ilbs. The celebrated show-sheep "Mountain King," which was bred 

 at Hould Top, and made the Knowlmere flock, was the grandsire of 

 this trio on both sides, and when he was in his heyday, his own fleece 

 weighed i81bs. 



A breeder of many years' standing once wrote to us : "I never saw 

 my mountain flock so full of wool. The average will be about 5lbs., 

 but it is generally 4^1bs. Those kept on the low lands will of course 

 clip more — about 6 or 7lbs., and some as high as 81bs." These calcu- 

 lations will, however, only apply to a flock which is well looked after 

 on a good fell range. The wool is long in the staple, but rough about 

 the breeching — a point on which the Leicester cross improves it, and it 

 goes principally into the hands of the manufacturers of Rochdale for 

 blankets and the finest cloths. During 1857-65, prices varied from 

 i8j\ gd. to 32 s. the stone of i61bs. Three-year-old wethers from the 

 fell, when grazed out on good glass land, kill to about iSlbs. per quarter 

 of fine-grained well-mixed mutton, which a Lonk breeder would con- 

 sider it flat heresy in an epicure to rank after Southdown or Welsh. 

 With fairly good feeding and a fillip from turnips, 5lbs. to 7lbs. a 

 quarter more can be reached ; but the sort cannot be ranked among 

 very fast feeders. 



