40 SHEEP FARMING IN AMERICA. 



though the lambs may not have quite the same 

 vigor at birth nor do they usually fatten at 

 quite so early an age. 



The one difficulty with the Shropshire sheep 

 in America is the careless and ignorant shep- 

 herd who permits his flock to become infested 

 with parasites or allows his ewes to become 

 so fat that they do not breed well, and such 

 a man might not succeed with any breed. 



HAMPSHIKES. 



The study of how this great breed was orig- 

 inated is a most interesting one, though rather 

 too long and complicated to be entered fully 

 into here. The Hampshire is the result of 

 skillful mingling of the bloods of an old white- 

 faced horned race, called the Wiltshire, the 

 Southdown, the Sussex and probably the Cotn- 

 wold breeds. Durieg many years men worked 

 gradually toward an ideal, making skillful 

 matings and discarding the inferior offspring 

 as well as those which went toward the wrong 

 type. The result is astonishing, for the Hamp- 

 shire breeds now remarkably true to type and 

 that type quite unlike any of the ancestry in- 

 volved in its creation. 



The Hampshire is the largest and heaviest 

 of the Down breeds, and is only excelled by 

 the Lincoln in weight and occasionally by the 

 Cotswolds, among the long-wooled races. Tt 

 has dark brown or black points, with bold 

 countenance, and a large ear, set on rather low 

 and standing well out to the side. The bone 

 is large, limbs especially strong and well set 



