IitAC and Frufjvcss oj the Leicester Breed of Sheep. 357 
climate, unless highly kept on artificial food. As a cross for 
the native breed they are unrivalled. The Sb.rops, on the con- 
trary, do well as a pure breed ; but their wool is against them, 
and they have been princi])ally used for getting early lambs 
from the improved native ewes. The " mules " between the 
Leicester ram and the Scotch black-face are also in considerable 
lavour. Among the earliest improvers of the sheep the name 
of Mr. French will always hold its place. Mi-. Astley, of Od- 
stone, in Leicestershire, was one of the first who brought over 
rams to Ballinasloe fair ; and Mr. Robert Holmes imported the 
best ewes and rams he could get from the Burgesses. Gradually 
the taste for a rather larger sheep set in, and for fifteen years at 
least, the breeders have returned full handed from the Kelso ram 
sales, and the Border Leicesters have carried the day. At the 
Royal Dublin Society's show the largest prizes are given to Lei- 
cesters, and both descriptions of them have classes to themselves. 
A few words upon the last of the old-fashioned Leicester 
breeders and we have done. Mr. Valentine Barford, of Foscote, 
in Northamptonshire, had the same sturdy self-reliance as Luke 
Scott, but under a happier star. He and his father before him 
liad held one farm under the Dukes of Grafton for more than a 
hundred years. It was their fixed belief that the Foscote flock 
was the only one in the kingdom that could " present an 
unbroken pedigree from the time and stock of Bakewell." They 
got their blood originally from Mr. Joseph Robinson, of Wel- 
lingborough Lodge, who was a member of the Club from 1783 
to 1803 inclusive. The sheep, " ironically called Lumber," was 
used for two seasons, and then they dipped deep into the blood 
of " Dishley A." In 1810 they ended with " No. 4 of 1810, by 
a grandson of C, alias Cade, alias Cuddy, of 1802," and bred 
henceforth entirely from their own flock. Firm mutton, a well- 
arched rib, a deep chest, and hardihood of constitution, were 
Mr. Valentine Barford's cardinal points, and he would not allow 
that he had held by purity of breed at any sacrifice of mutton. 
If his sheep had not the size of other pure Leicesters, he main- 
tained that many more of them could be kept for the same 
money, and that there were always " more customers for a small 
neat joint." He did not profess to pick over his rams for the 
ewes, on the ground that " the worst is as likely to get good 
.stock as the best ;" and he wormed all of them before he sent 
them to the butcher. When other breeders paused to read the 
])edigree papers, which he annually placed above his pens at 
the Royal Agricultural show, he used to tell them, in his plea- 
sant way, that lie studied nature, and that the reason he dared 
to show his sheep quite bare was to prove that " I can breed 
tiiem of the shape which you clip them into." Poor George 
Newton could not understand their shapes at all, and was heard 
