Report on the Sheep UxMhited at Windsor. G79 
of sheep as an animal already domesticated for tlie food and 
clothing of man. The erudite author of Textrinum Anti- 
quorum supports this contention by a liost of references from the 
classics, to which those who are curious may be referred. 
The antiquity and importance of sheep are not less striking 
locally than universally. British sheep date certainly from the 
prehistoric period. We do not know much about the Ancient 
Britons, and we know still less of their flocks. That they 
possessed them is a fair assumption. As the late Mr. John 
Coleman, in his work on The Sheep of Great Britain, remarks : — ■ 
" Writers who have assumed that because the oldest records 
contain no mention of them, that therefore they did not exist, 
appear to forget that the same reasoning might apply to the 
country itself." Shortly after the conquest of Britain by the 
Eomans there is record of a woollen manufactory being esta- 
blished at Winchester — a circumstance from which the breeding 
of sheep in this country at that time is fairly deducible. In 
fact, as Lord Cathcart observes in his interesting article on 
Wool,i ^}jQ Journal for 1875, "the more we study the history 
of the subject the more we are taught that wool and the wool- 
trade was the foundation of our English commercial prosperity." 
Two prominent factors in the making of this land of ours 
originated about the same time. Parliament and the wool- 
trade both rose into importance at the end of the thirteenth 
century. The late J. R. Green ^ has a passage which, without 
undue straining, might justify us in claiming that the latter was 
at least partly the cause of the former. He refers to " the long 
peace and prosperity of the realm, the extension of its commerce, 
and the increased export of wool " as tending to form that 
middle class which was to check the power of the barons and 
to form the Commons of England. But, if the wool-trade had 
anything to do with the creation of Parliament, Parliament was 
amply avenged. Barely a century ago the statute-book contained 
no less than 311 laws relating to wool and woollens. An industry 
which has survived such treatment deserves at the least our re- 
spect. It did survive and flourish, and to this day the ofiicial 
seat of the Lord Chancellor testifies to the fact — first recognised 
by this token in the reign of Queen Elizabeth — that wool was 
the foundation of England's greatness. 
But, except in vindication of the dignity and importance of 
the subject, the ancient records of sheep-breeding have little 
present interest. Broadly speaking, it may be said that within 
' Wiwl in relation to Science with Practice, Journal K.A.S.E., Vol. XI, 
2nd Series (1875), p. 315. 
^ Short History of tlte English People. 
