loo THE SHEEP AND ITS COUSINS 



and Somersetshire, the breed is spread to a certain 

 extent over most of the southern counties of Eng- 

 land. Professor Plumb ^ writes as follows of the 

 Dorset in other countries : — 



" The breed has not been taken up with much 

 avidity abroad. In the United States high-class 

 flocks are found in New York, New Jersey, Pennsyl- 

 vania, Ohio, and Connecticut, but the breed is 

 found in many other states and also in Canada. 

 Dorsets have been also exported to Australasia and 

 other British colonies. The breed seems well 

 adapted to the level or slightly rolling lands where 

 food is abundant. It has also thriven in the 

 Allegheny mountain region under conditions of 

 good grazing." 



A sandy tract lying to the southward of the 

 River Wye, formerly devoted to crops of rye, gave 

 its name to the Ryeland breed of sheep,- which, 

 under certain local modifications, at one time 

 extended over the greater portion of the area in 

 the west of England lying between the Severn and 

 the mountains of South Wales. So far as can be 

 ascertained, the Ryeland breed is an indigenous 

 type. Low,^ for instance, writes that "it may not 

 unreasonably be inferred to be a variety of that 

 widely diffused race of soft-woolled sheep which 

 formerly extended from the mountains and islands 



^ Types and Breeds of Farm Animals, p. 414. 



* Domesticated Animals of the British Islands, 2nd ed., p. 156. 



