CHAPTER V. 



BEITISH AKD OTHEE LONG AND MIDDLE - WOOLED 

 SHEEP IN THE UNITED STATES. 



lEICESTKES, COTSWOLDS, LnSTCOLNS, NEW OXTOEDSHIKBS, 

 BLACK-FACED SCOTCH, CHEVIOT, PAT-KOTIPED, BBOAD-TAILED, 

 PEESIAN AND CHINESE SHEEP. 



No breed of domestic sheep were indigenous to the United 

 States ; nor is it deemed necessary here to attempt to trace 

 the origin or subsequent history of the various breeds and 

 families, imported by our ancestors -^hen they colonized this 

 -Continent, and which, being mixed promiscuously together, 

 constituted what it became customary to speak of as the 

 " Native Sheep," when the Merino and the improved British 

 breeds were afterwards introduced. They were generally 

 lank, gaunt, slow-feeding, coarse, short-wooled, hardy, 

 prolific animals — not well adapted to any special purpose of 

 wool or mutton production. A family of them, the Otter 

 Sheep — so termed from their short, crooked, rickety legs, a 

 mere perpetuated monstrosity — and the descendants of some 

 English long-wools, on Smith's Island, imagined by a few 

 persons to be indigenous there — are the only sub-varieties 

 which have ever attracted special notice; and they were 

 wholly unworthy of it. 



Not having bred English sheep of late years, and never 

 having bred them extensively, I can entertain little doubt that 

 I shall give more satisfaction to the readers of this volume if 

 I select descriptions of them from British and American 

 sources of recognized authority. 



The Leicester Sheep.* — ^It id with profound pleasure that 

 I am enabled to trace the first probable importation into the 



* I leave off the prefix " New," because these sheep have altogether superseded 

 ihe parent stockj so as to be generally denominated " the Leicester." And they are 

 BO denominated in the prize lists of the Eoynl Agricultural Society of England. 



