514 FIXITY OF TYPE IN THE BREED OF SHEEP. 
increasing under the continuance of peace, and the progress 
of marine intercourse, which tends to draw closer the com- 
munion of nations — as close as that of provinces in the middle 
ages. But if the wool of our mo?igrels bearfc small promise 
of future profit, those sheep have certainly little to recom- 
mend them in point of mutton, which retains the taint of 
their origin. 
* This disfigured foreign race, then, is in the same case with 
the old native races of our ancient France that have with- 
stood better than she herself has done the endless revo- 
lutions of which she has been the sport. These breeds 
satisfied the simple requirements of our ancestors, but in our 
days you might as well try to restore the coarse clothes w*orn 
by those ancestors and the frugal life which they led, as 
propose to satisfy the demands of our manufacturers and the 
wants of our increased population from breeds with coarse 
wool and unthrifty frame, subsisting miserably on the 
spontaneous produce of soils either naturally barren or ill- 
cultivated. 
Many causes thus naturally led our farmers to crossing 
with English breeds : first, the deplorable state of our old 
French breeds as to both mutton and wool; next, the imper- 
fection as butcher’s animals of the Merino mongrels which 
have replaced the old breeds wherever the goodness of the 
soil and excellence of the forage allowed their introduction. 
Besides, a certain amount of enlightenment had evidently 
penetrated the minds of our farmers, which we must hope 
will lead to improvement in the feeding and management of 
French sheep. For hitherto these valuable animals have 
been, and still are, on most of our farms, treated as mere out- 
casts. They are crowded together without light or air in 
hovels which are rendered unwholesome by the fermentation 
of the droppings accumulated under their inmates perhaps 
for a year. In summer they receive only the natural produce 
of the soil ; in winter, straw, and that straw often damaged. 
Even this fodder often does not hold out, and then the flocks 
have no other resource than to gnaw the heath and shrubs 
wfith which the commons are covered, or scratch in the snow 
to find some blades of withered grass. On this sad but true 
picture a ray of light has at last been shed. In many places 
our farmers begin to perceive the need of improved manage- 
ment, and, w r herever improvement begins in the manage- 
ment, it is soon found to be also required in the breed. The 
only merit of the old breeds is that they are not destroyed 
by such management, but they will not pay for more gene- 
rous diet. 
