204 THE LIVING ANIMALS OF THE WORLD 
sheep. Later a large heavy 
sheep, with long wool and a 
massive body, was bred in 
the Midlands, and called 
the LEICESTER LONG-WOOL. 
This sheep gives a great cut 
of wool, and much coarse 
mutton. The CHEVIOT SHEEP, 
originally bred on the hills of 
that name, is now one of the 
mainstays of the Scotch moun- 
tain farmer. The Cheviots 
eat the grass on the high 
hillsides, while the BLACK- 
FACED HIGHLAND SHEEP 
live on the heather higher 
up. The SUFFOLK, OXFORD, 
HAMPSHIRE, and_ other 
“Down” sheep are larger 
breeds than the South Down. 
eee erenlt The RoMNEY MARSH SHEEP 
This is a photograph of the largest sheep on record are a heavy long-woolled 
breed. The EXMOORS are 
small heather-sheep like those of Wales, and the SOA and St. KILDA SHEEP, which are often 
four-horned, the smallest of all. 
The maintenance of flocks is now almost an essential part of English agriculture on all 
chalk lands, which comprise a very large percentage of the southern counties. On the chalk 
downs the flocks are the great fertilisers of the soil. Every night the sheep are folded on 
the fields which are destined to produce corn in the following year. The manure so left on 
the soil ensures a good crop, with no expense for carting the fertiliser from the farmyard, as 
is the case with manure made by oxen kept in straw-yards. 
On the South Downs, Oxfordshire Downs or Chiltern Hills, Salisbury Plain, and the 
Berkshire Downs the farms have been mainly carried on by the aid cf the flocks. Where 
these are no longer kept the land reverts to grass, and the growing of corn ceases. On the 
coarse, new-sown grasses cattle take the place of sheep, and an inferior style of farming, like 
the ranches of South America, replaces the 
careful and highly skilled agriculture of Old 
England. In the far north of Scotland cross- 
bred sheep are now reared and fed in winter 
on turnips, which will grow luxuriantly where 
the climate is too bleak and wet for wheat. 
Formerly cattle were the main source 
of wealth to the owners of Highland estates. 
The sheep was only introduced after the 
Highlands were subdued subsequently to 
the rebellion in 1745. It was found that 
the rough-coated heather-sheep throve on the 
wet and elevated hills. This led to their 
substitution for cattle, as wool was then dear. 
Sheep are now in their turn giving way to 
grouse and deer over much of the Central WELSH EWES 
Highlands, as the price of wool has fallen. A small breed of bill-sheep 
enters a 
t 3 
Photo by F. T. Newman] [ Berkhamsted 
