Bober t Bakewell. 
17 
“ The carcass, when fully fat, takes a remarkable form, much 
wider than it is deep, and almost as broad as it is long ; full on 
the shoulder, widest on the ribs, narrowing with a regular 
curve towards the tail ; approaching the form of the turtle 
nearer than any other animal.” He remarks, moreover, as 
another distinguishing character, the smallness of bone in this 
breed compared with the old sorts, not of the legs only, but 
ribs and other bones. He had seen the rib of the New 
Leicester compared with that of the Norfolk sheep, the latter 
nearly twice the size of the former, the meat on the former 
three times the thickness of that on the latter, showing a 
very remarkable difference in the proportion of meat to 
bone. 
The Dishley rams, Marshall observes, were often grooved 
along the middle of the back, and he refers to the belief 
that this was an evidence of the best blood. The notion, like 
many other popular fallacies, had a long life, for in the year 
1830 Mr. John Wright, of Chesterfield, in his prize essay on 
sheep, presented to the Manchester Agricultural Society, took 
pains to show that the cloven back is not a mark of merit but 
rather the reverse. He, too, has remarks upon Bakewell 
which are perhaps sufficiently instructive for repetition in sub- 
stance here. He takes the Leicester as the breed of sheep 
which had attained to early maturity in the highest degree, 
and asserts that under Bakewell’s masterly management the 
breed had reached a height of perfection never exceeded since 
his day (he wrote 35 years after Bakewell’s death) ; but how 
the original improvement took place was a question of imper- 
fect history, “ authors ” having differed widely in their opinions, 
and Bakewell himself having failed to record the process. His 
most intimate friend, however, his most frequent travelling 
companion, had preserved the information that it was by selec- 
tions from the Lincolns without any other cross. At one period, 
Mr. Wright says it is well known, Mr. Bakewell’s sheep had 
become too small, fine, light- woolled, and what he calls “ effe- 
minate,” a term by which, probably, he means that the mascu- 
line character of the ram had been lost. He assumes the pro- 
bability that Bakewell effected the refinement from the coarser 
original type by the constant use of light-boned under-sized 
rams. The sure result of very long perseverance in this process 
would be that which he says actually occurred — diminution of 
the average size of the sheep of that breed. It is quite possible, 
too, that in the effort to realise and to fix his ideal form Bake- 
well had sacrificed somewhat of the character peculiar to the 
male sex. Mr. Wright infers that “ perseverance in the 
VOL. v. t. s. — 17 c 
