174 president's addeess. 



of the animal is in conformity with its mode of life, and in har- 

 mony with the hills it occupies. 



I fear we cannot say so much for the present uniformly white 

 flocks of Cheviot sheep which range over our Northumbrian 

 moors, where the pasturage comprises extensive tracts of heather, 

 as well as grasses, rushes, bent, and bracken. It is absolutely 

 impossible, according to the ways of nature, that a perfectly 

 white race of sheep should continue unvaried upon such ground, 

 without assiduous, but misapplied, care on the part of the master 

 and his shepherds to get rid of every change, great or small, 

 which the effects of heather pasturage tend to introduce. The 

 truth is, our Cheviot flocks, in their present state, are highly 

 artificial. They are the result of an elaborate selection by farmers 

 and shepherds, continued for nearly a century, and stimulated 

 by our agricultural shows. They are fancy-Cheviots, and not 

 the legitimate result of nature's laws upon our hills of wild and 

 and varied herbage. 



In one respect true wisdom has been shown by our sheep- 

 farmers and our agricultural societies, in their encouragement of 

 animals having black muzzles and black hoofs, as indispensa- 

 ble requisites for successful competition. These features arc 

 known by experience to be indications of hardihood. In other 

 words, they are the black points which redeem an otherwise 

 white animal from pure and perfect albinism. They are indeed 

 invaluable as far as they go; but how much better if a little 

 more of hearty natural colouring had been left in the flock ; if 

 the fancy of imitating the white border Leicesters of the low- 

 lying farms had not beset the hill farmers ! If a flock of the 

 best existing Cheviots, as they now are, were in the hands of a 

 man who was a good naturalist, as well as a good farmer, he 

 would be very watchful no doubt to maintain the best points of 

 form, the best quality of wool, the kindliest feeding properties ; 

 but, so long as these were kept up, he would encourage every 

 sympton of reversion to the old dun-faced race of heather-Che- 

 viots, despising the silly notion that a dun complexion indicates 

 some taint from a west-country black-face cross. 



