500 
Tlie Cumberland and Westmoreland 
and one can understand the esteem in which they are held.* 
In another place I have had occasion to allude to an essay by 
Mr. William Abbot, of Coniston, which is printed in the ' New 
could climb the crags of tlie lake mountains, even if they could endure their 
persistent deluges, or exist upon their scanty herbage. I am no apologist for tlie 
latter breed, but surely something is to be said for them. Mr. Leathes' statement 
to us was that only Herdwiclvs will thrive on bare mountains with excessive rain 
fall. The Scotch live on heather ; but the Cheviots lilie dry bent. Perliaps the 
' Field' critic has scarcely taken into account the tremendous rains by which tlie 
western mountains are visited, and which are exhausted before they reach the 
Cheviot range. 1 would further point out that " dry " cold is more easily 
endured by all the cultivated breeds of sheep than persistent wet with, greater 
warmth. — H. J. L. 
" The Herdwicks were in strong force for so exceptional a breed. This was to 
be expected, as Cumberland is their own ground. These sheep were ridiculed li 
good deal last year, after the appearance of some of them at Kilburn. The 
breeders of them in return criticised the critics, and advised them to wait till 
this meeting, and then study them more carefully. For our part we have done 
so, and our opinion of them now is more unfavourable than it was before. The 
breeders of these sheep contend that if Herdwicks were not kept on the Cumber 
land hills, no sheep could be kept there at all. They say this, however, on mis 
taken grounds ; for when a trial of Cheviots is recommended, they reply that 
Cheviots are grown on lowlands, and that they would die on the Cumberland 
hills before they got acclimatised. This is a mistake that in these days of 
facilities for travelling, and of ample discussion of such subjects in newspapers, we 
should not have thought would be made. There are no hills in Cumberland that 
are anything like the height and coldness of the Cheviot hills, after which the 
Cheviot sheep are named. The latter are further north, and much more east 
besides. We have seen the Cheviots capped with snow at the end of September 
and equally white at the end of May. In fact, so severe is the weather there 
that if the sheep bred on them were to be taken down to lower lands for only a 
few weeks, they could not stand the climate on their return. The only way 
indeed, that the stamina of the flocks can be kept up is by taking larger and more 
vigorous rams than would grow on the tops of the hills to the ewes that have 
been bred there. AVhen they have done their duty, if they survive, they are 
taken down again. These stronger rams are bred on the lower slojies of tlie 
hills. Now, if the breeders of Herdwicks be not too infatuated with their 
hairy and black-spotted pets, they may advisedly procure a few ewe lambs from 
the top of the Cheviot hills. We say lambs, because the probability is that the 
Cumberland hills would be too mild and relaxing for sheep that have lived for 
three or four years on the higher and more bleak range in the neighbourhood of 
the Tweed. It would be advisable, too, to migrate these lambs at Christmas 
time, and, if snow be on the ground, so much the better. Anyway, this is an 
experiment that Herdwick men may advisedly make, at least to a small extent 
Should this advice be doubted, we feel sure that Mr. W. Smith, of Melkington 
Cornhill, who farms some thousands of acres of the sides and top of the Cheviot 
hills, will confirm our views. The Cheviot sheep at Carlisle looked in every 
way specimens of the result of civilisation ; while the Herdwicks in every way 
looked like the last remnant of, we won't say barbarism, but of very ancient and 
primitive sheep-breeding. The judges at Carlisle confiimed this view by giving 
the prizes in the shearling ram classes to the sheep that had tlie least hair 
around the neck and the fewest black spots about the backs and sides ; but in 
the older rams they had not much choice, so the prizes went to goaty-looking 
animals that had long black or brown ruffs of hair around their necks and long 
grey beards. The ewes were so small and light that a man might easily have 
taken one under each arm, and another in each baud, and walked any distance 
with the four without much inconvenience. Many of the ewes were spotted with 
black wool, in about an equal proportion in size and number to the spots on a 
leopard."— F/eW, July 24, 1880. 
• See H. H. Dixon's (" The Druid's ") ' Essay on Mountain Sheep,' vol. ii. 
(New Series), of this Journal, where much information is given. 
