96 Sheep-Farming 



sider best calculated to maintain the reputation of 

 the breed, and to promote the advantage of sheep 

 breeders and the public generally; and while we 

 have kept in view the importance of producing a 

 heavy fleece, we have not forgotten the necessity 

 of recommending the animals most capable of pro- 

 ducing muscular flesh, and those best calculated 

 in their own natures to perpetuate a symmetrical, 

 heavy, and hardy sheep. We are pleased to note 

 that the general excellence of the class of shearling 

 rams caused us much struggle in making our de- 

 cisions, no fewer than eighteen specimens being 

 ordered by us into the ring to make our final selec- 

 tions from, and we do not hesitate in pronouncing 

 them to be the best eighteen sheep we ever saw to- 

 gether." In 1884, when the Royal Society's Show 

 was held at Shrewsbury, a central point in the na- 

 tive district of the breed, eight hundred and seventy- 

 five Shropshires were exhibited, which were twice 

 as many as the number from all other breeds. In 

 1883 the first volume of the Shropshire Flock Book 

 of Great Britain was issued, the first British sheep 

 register to be printed. In 1855 the breed first came 

 to America; and in 1884 the American Shropshire 

 Registry Association was formed, and the first vol- 

 ume of their record issued in 1889. 



Type of the Shropshires. — The strength of the 

 Shropshire is the degree to which they combine mut- 

 ton and wool qualities with the type that does best 



