150 
dun Forest Sheep. 
At the annual fairs held at Knighton on September 13 and 
October 1, as many as 30,000 of these Forest sheep are annually 
pitched. At Craven Arms, Kington, and other places near the 
Forest district, large numbers are also sold during the autumn, whilst 
Messrs. Davies and Watkins, of Knighton, dispose of great numbers 
at all seasons. At other markets there is a constant sale, and, even 
so far north as Oswestry, Messrs. Whitfeld sell some 2,000 or 3,000 
ewes weekly for several weeks in the autumn. The ewes, which 
invariably produce a large quantity of milk, and lambs are fattened 
together, and sheep farmers 6nd them a profitable investment. The 
lambs, when got by a Shropshire ram, attain a rapid maturity, and 
those born early in January produce five stone of high-class lamb by 
Easter. 
Considering the high estimation in which the Shropshire breed is 
justly held, it is perhaps only natural that any other breed existing 
in the same neighbourhood should be to some extent overshadowed, 
and, beyond this, the modern Forest sheep, when it leaves the 
strictly Forest districts, is indebted to the Shropshire sheep for 
aiding in its development and improvement. Accordingly, it is not 
surprising that so far as its merits as a sheep-feeder’s breed are 
concerned, the Clun Forest breed is not widely known outside the 
districts where it is adopted, and doubtless many who see the 
Warwick Catalogue will feel that it is a breed of which they have 
heard but little. Clun Forest sheep possess no flock book. The 
development of the original nati\-e Forest sheep to the present type 
has extended over a lengthened period, and but little accurate 
record has been kept of the changes which have taken place, while 
the local traditions of the breed at the beginning of this century are 
both hazy and limited. 
The Rev. Joseph Plymley, who wrote on the Agriculture of 
Shropshire for the Board of Agriculture in 1803, quoted from a 
previous report dealing with the Forest sheep, in which it was 
stated that the Longmynd sheep possessed horns and black faces, 
with wool averaging 2^ lb. per fleece, of which ^ lb. was breechen or 
coarse wool and was sold distinct from the rest. When fattened they 
weighed nearly 40 lb. Upon the hills nearer Wales (this would point 
to the Clun Forest) the flocks v/ere without horns and had white 
faces. 
Youatt, in 1837, confirmed this, but he stated definitely that the 
Clun Forest sheep were a white-faced, hornless breed ; though at 
the same time he mentions that they were fast changing their 
characteristics because of the crossing to which they were being 
subjected, and most of them bore traces of this in the darker 
colouring of the head. He gave, however, no reason why the Forest 
sheep of hills comparatively near together should have difiTered so 
widely in their outward points. 
David Lowe, in Domesticated Animals of the British Isles, \vritten 
also early in the century, distinguished the original Clun Forest 
sheep from those of the neighbouring Forests of Radnor and other 
high-lying Welsh counties, and had no hesitation in associating 
