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XVI. — On a Metliodof ohtaining immediate Fixity of Type inform- 

 ing a new breed of Sheep. Bj M. MalingiE-Nouel, Director 

 of the Agricultural School of La Charmoise, President of the 

 Agricultural Society of Loire et Cher. Translated by Mr. 

 PusEY. 



It would certainly have been very convenient for French farmers 

 if we could have appropriated the results of the long labours of 

 the English, who have succeeded, as all the world knows, in 

 creating races of sheep the best suited to modern requirements. 

 If the thing had been possible for us, it ought to have been 

 effected without national jealousy, but, unluckily, it was not 

 possible. The chief races of English sheep, formed under cer- 

 tain circumstances, cannot remain what they are, where those 

 circumstances are altered. In all countries south of Great 

 Britain there is great difiiculty in fulfilling this condition, and 

 even then the expense is such as to sv/allow the profit. Merinos 

 bave been transferred from Spain to the north, even as far as 

 Norway and Sweden, but English sheep do not thrive when 

 carried southwards to a country even so near as France. It 

 seems, therefore, almost certain that sheep cannot be moved so 

 easily from north to south as from south to north. 



But though the races of English sheep could not be kept up in 

 France, we yet might fairly entertain the hope of crossing them 

 with our native breeds. Here then a wide field opened itself 

 for experiments neither expensive nor, as might have been sup- 

 posed, even difficult. Accordingly there arose a host of experi- 

 menters, most of whom, unacquainted with the first principles 

 that govern reproduction, proceeded headlong in the blind hope 

 that chance vv^ould afford them that happy solution which they 

 were unable to ask of science, and which chance after all did not 

 give them. 



Now, it certainly would be in our power, without quitting 

 French breeds, to form a race of our own, perfect in form, and 

 possessing, like the English breeds, early maturity, with aptitude 

 to fatten. For this purpose we might pursue a course of judi- 

 cious selection for a long series of years, aiding this selection 

 by a system of constant care and of nutritious food. But besides 

 that such long-winded operations, requiring great perseverance of 

 view and of will, seldom find men determined enough to conceive 

 and, above all, to execute them, they require in fact more than 

 the ordinary life of man, and therefore cannot be carried out 

 without a succession of experimenters animated by the same 

 views, and employing similar means. Such an enterprise cannot 

 be executed unless by a man who, like the founder of the New 

 Kent breed, Richard Goord, commences young, and lives like 

 him eighty-six years. 



