FIXITY OF TYPE IN THE BREED OF SHEEP. 5/1 
old sheep of French breeds, and at the end of winter yielded 
56 to 65 lbs. of meat, with 1 1 to 13 lbs. of tallow. 
The next year the same cross was tried with the same 
success. 
The third year was still more interesting. Our first ewe- 
lambs, at the age of twenty months, had been put to the 
rams which had been saved. The offspring was most equal 
in quality, though proceeding from parents which were a 
first cross ; indeed they were more level in appearance than 
the offspring of some native flocks. 
From that time now for some years there has been at 
La Charmoise a double set of lambs; one set from the New- 
Kent rams and the mixed-blood ewes, another from rams 
and ewes the result of that cross. 
A remarkable circumstance continues to this very year — 
I mean the perfect resemblance of the two sets of lambs 
obtained by the two different methods. I have often divided 
them into lots, and then found it impossible, even by careful 
examination, to distinguish one set of lambs from the other. 
This fact is most important — it proves that the breed is 
established. It only remains, in order to attain the utmost 
fixity and perfection, that we select carefully the rams and 
the breeding ewes. This is what will be henceforth done. 
At first we kept all the ewe-lambs, in order to reach the 
amount of 500 breeding ewes, the limit of our establishment. 
We have now the power of selection, in order to keep up 
that number; and we have great encouragement, in the 
prizes already won, still further to improve this breed by 
careful selection. 
It is stated that the La Charmoise breed have taken prizes 
whenever they have been shown at Versailles or Poissy. 
Note . — It was in the first number of this journal the late 
Lord Spencer stated, he had observed that the worse bred 
the female is, the more likely is the offspring to resemble a 
well-bred sire ; and he told me that, practically, he should 
prefer a cow of no breed, to an indifferent pure-bred cow, for 
a good thorough-bred bull. The principle, however, has 
never been so thoroughly carried out as in the above experi- 
ments at La Charmoise, for the communication of which I 
am indebted to Mr. Rives, the late diplomatic representative 
at Paris of the United States. Besides their practical value, 
I cannot but think they throw some little light on one of the 
most mysterious of all physiological problems — the renewal 
of the features of parents in the reproduction of animals. — 
Ph. Pusey. — Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society. 
