Goats, and Pigs at Kilburn. 
655 
All the Lonks exhibited were from the flock of Messrs. Green 
and Son, of Silsden. 
The remark of the Judges upon the possibility of increasing 
the weight of wool of the Welsh sheep, is one deserving of 
earnest attention ; and if admitted to be practicable, the im- 
provement should be by all means attempted with equal 
earnestness of purpose. The great difficulty seems to be that of 
improving any kind of sheep, specially adapted to certain loca- 
lities, by crossinfj. Such kinds of sheep, as a rule, must be 
improved by a slower process of selection, without the help of 
properties borrowed from other breeds. This was very clearly 
illustrated a few years ago by Mr. Peel, of Knowlmere, an 
eminently successful breeder of Lonk sheep, who tried to 
improve his flock by Southdown and Shropshire crosses, return- 
ing the offspring to the Lonk ram. The experiments signally 
failed, as all similar attempts with which I am familiar have 
failed. The sheep of the mountain or the heath will profitably 
cross with other breeds under altered circumstances of pasturage 
or climate, but not, so far as I have been enabled to observe, upon 
their own particular moor or mountain range. The improve- 
ment noticed by the Judges as having been effected in the 
colour of the Herdwick wool, certainly affords encouragement to 
hope that practical effect may be given to the Judges' sugges- 
tion about Welsh wool, without the sacrifice of purity of breed 
or special fitness for a certain locality. 
The Herd wicks, whether tracing to an origin in the waifs of 
the Spanish Armada, or of still more ancient lodgment " in the 
arms of Helvellyn" and the neighbouring giants of Cumberland 
and Westmoreland, have been certainly improved within the last 
few years, but not by crossing. They can thrive where nothing 
but their own unmixed breed could live. The tourist may see 
them, at dizzy heights, sure-footed, mere specks on the narrow 
ledges of the precipitous rock ; and thus enabled, by gradual 
and long-established adaptation to their circumstances, to scale 
the rock and brave the storm, they are pre-eminently fitted to 
turn the scanty and otherwise waste vegetation of the mountain 
into food and clothing for man. 
In their own district, two classes of Herdwicks are recog- 
nized — the large and the small (so called only in comparison 
with one another), the sheep of different mountains and " fells " 
varying considerably in size and in colour also. Both, however, 
are small, and extremely fine in the bone. One of the larger sort, 
well fed, may reach 25 lbs. a quarter, but about half that weight 
would be probably nearer the average of the breed, large and 
small, for moderately fed four-year-old sheep. At Kilburn, of 
course, there was no subdivision of breed. Two of the three 
