M.— AGRICULTURE 239 



improved and modified until it became the Welsh Mountain sheep well 

 before the period of which we are speaking. 



Arable Sheep Farming. 



Up to the eighteenth century sheep in all parts of the country were 

 necessarily what we should now describe as ' grass sheep.' The weeds 

 and miscellaneous herbage of the fallows and stubbles could contribute 

 comparatively little to the sustenance of the flock. In the fifteenth and 

 sixteenth centuries, when wool production was particularly profitable, 

 a great increase in sheep stocks took place, and the extra food required 

 for them was provided, not by ploughing up land, but by the reverse 

 process of converting arable land into pasture, much to the dismay and 

 indignation of all except the large landowners and flock-masters. The 

 long-wools, which formed the bulk of the production of the country, were 

 mainly the product of the grass lands of the Midlands. At the same time, 

 the folding of the sheep on the fallows was, as we have seen, an essential 

 part of the old English arable system. Therefore, when the fallow was 

 replaced by root crops and various forage crops, it was natural that a 

 system should be devised under which sheep consumed the crops where 

 they grew. Gradually there was developed the system of intensive 

 sheep management, best seen about the end of the nineteenth century in 

 counties such as Wiltshire, Dorset and Hampshire. There the flocks 

 might be kept closely folded on arable land throughout the whole year, 

 consuming crops specially grown for them. For such a system our Down 

 breeds of sheep are particularly suitable, and without it they would not 

 have reached their present degree of excellence as mutton sheep. The 

 Dorset Horn in its own country, the Leicester on the Yorkshire Wolds, or 

 the Lincoln on the light arable land in its own county are other examples 

 of arable sheep, though the system of management in the North was never 

 so intensive as that in the South. 



Fat Lamb Industry. 



In recent times the most important changes have been associated with 

 the great development of the fat lamb industry, but it would be wrong to 

 regard it as a new activity. Tusser, Lisle and others refer to it in writings 

 from the seventeenth century onwards, and in the neighbourhood of 

 London the practice of obtaining very early fat lambs appears to have been 

 quite common. Dorset Horn ewes, as now, were commonly employed 

 for this purpose, and the practice of rearing the lambs indoors led to the 

 term ' House ' lamb. At the same time, the practice of producing early 

 fat lambs was by no means confined to the Home Counties or to Dorset 

 Horn ewes. Lisle describes the sending of fat lambs from Wiltshire to 

 London at the beginning of the eighteenth century, and in the County 

 Reports, to which I must make frequent reference, there is very 

 general mention of fat lambs. For instance, in Durham, the draft 

 mountain ewes were sold from the high western districts to the lower 

 eastern parts of the county, where occupiers could not keep permanent 



