28 Sheep-Farming 



feeding and breeding. These are clearly to be seen 

 in tracing the origin of the breeds. 



Classification of breeds. — Several classifications 

 of breeds have been made and they are all more or 

 less elastic. The color of the face, dividing the breeds 

 into the dark-faced and the white-faced, has been 

 used as a dividing line; the quality of the fleece, 

 whether fine, medium, or coarse, has also served the 

 purpose, and the difference in the length of the wool 

 fiber, whether long or short, has been employed as 

 a basis for separation; but perhaps the best of all 

 classifications, because it is more instructive than 

 any other, is that which divides them according 

 to their adaptability to different altitudes, whether 

 lowland, upland, or mountain. 



Classification according to face color. — Separating 

 the breeds on the color of the face, the dark or 

 black-faced group will be found to include all the 

 Down varieties, the Southdown, Shropshire, Hamp- 

 shire, Oxford, Suffolk, and the Highland Blackface, 

 though the face of the latter is very frequently of 

 broken color. The white-faced group includes all 

 others, though there is a strain of the Cotswold that 

 is dark in the face, and the Wensleydales have faces 

 of various shades of blue. 



The wool as a ba^is for classification. — While 

 the line of division among the breeds based on the 

 fineness of the wool fiber is not marked by a measured 

 limit, yet it is none the less clearly defined. The 



