422 Saddle and Sirloin. 



grass, a few turnips, and hay if the weather is very- 

 bad, and killed off when they are ready. Sometimes, 

 but very rarely, the cross produces a true type of 

 Welsh sheep. Two crosses of Cheviot have increased 

 the Welsh sheep from 4olbs. dead weight {i.e., carcase 

 without the head or legs from the knee, when the 

 farmers sell by so much per lb.) to about 7olbs.,* and 

 have also more than doubled the wool, on which the 

 second cross seems to have good effect. Sheep of 

 this cross were too heavy for the mountain, and the 

 trial of a cross-bred ram sent down the size again. It 

 was also found that the continued use of the Cheviot 

 ram, which improved the texture of the mutton, and 

 gave it more fat, as long as it was confined to two 

 crosses, tended to make it too light in colour. No 

 pure Welsh leg of mutton should exceed 4^1bs. ; 

 larger ones are doubtful in their origin ; and even a 

 voucher that they were from the Vale of Conway and 

 the parts about Penmaen Mawr, would not satisfy a 

 man of strictly eclectic appetite. For Welsh wool, 

 pure and simple, the highest quotation has been i$d. 

 It has now come down to 8d. or gd., while the cross- 

 bred still touches i6d. Both are brought by the 

 Yorkshire and Lancashire wool-staplers. The Welsh 

 people still knit stockings and comforters as industri- 

 ously as ever from the old sort ; and there are mills in 

 Anglesea and Caernarvonshire where flannels, blankets, 

 and winseys (a sort of tweed) are manufactured prin- 

 cipally for home consumption. 



Radnorshire, or, as it was once more termed from 

 the bench, " that little sheep-walk, which calls itself a 

 county," where pony-fairs are still given out by the 

 clerk in the porch on Sundays, has some very Astecs 

 of sheep about Cwym-dau-ddwr, or " the dingle of the 

 two rivers," Wye and Elan, near the church of St. 



* Fed on hay and turnips, they have reached cjoll^. 



