English Farming Stocks 
Coats’ Patriot, which bull he sold into Lincoln¬ 
shire for 500 guineas ; she is a very neat heifer, 
her bone and offal very light. Primrose, her 
dam, is a most magnificent cow; and she is the 
dam of the bull I sold to Mr. Singleton. ” 
Pansey produced a bull calf in December, 
after she was imported, who was got by Aid de 
camp, and was called Young Champion, and 
was taken a few years since by Henry Van 
Rensseliaer, to his estate in St Lawrence County, 
near Ogdensburgh. So we may say, from 
Washington and Pansey, all the stock com¬ 
monly called and known as the “Patroon Stock,” 
have originated, as I am not aware of any calves 
having been reared from “ Young Champion. ” 
Pansey died two or three years since, at a ripe 
old age. 
This stock has always been noted for great 
thrift—taking on flesh very readily—fair milkers, 
and Mr. Bennett says, are out of fine deep 
milkers. 
C. N. B EM ENT. 
Three Hills Farm , March 1842. 
EsugMsii Farming Stoclc. 
London January , 8th 1842. 
Messrs EnrTORS 
One of the most interesting places to me is 
the Smithfield cattle market. The field is in 
the very heart of the city, and filled with small 
pens for sheep and hogs or with low posts and 
rails to fasten cattle to, as they are all tied up 
as soon as they get into the field. One sees 
here every variety of stock which the kingdom 
can produce, and no bad samples of the quality 
of the different breeds. I doubt whether you 
could find a place any where else, that would 
enable you to compare side by side, the various 
breeds, and grades of British stock. I have 
been at the market two days. Each day there 
was upwards of 16,000 sheep, and about 2,500 
head of cattle. I have seen much the same 
disparity in the proportion of cattle and 
sheep in most of the other large markets. 
Mutton is the most profitable meat the farmer 
can raise, as it gives a quicker return for his 
capital, and at a better profit, than any other 
stock he can keep. The consumption of mutton 
is enormous. The first consideration of the 
farmer is to get that kind of sheep that will give 
the most meat in the shortest time. Wool is no 
consideration, or at least only a secondary one, 
as all their fine wool is imported. Hence 
professed breeders have aimed in all their im¬ 
provements, to get a large carcass and early 
maturity. 
The best mutton is the small black faced 
Scotch, the Welsh, and the natural South 
Down: I say natural, for in its natural state the 
23 
South Down is not a very large sheep. The 
improved South Down I think must be the 
result of a cross between the South Down and 
the large long-wooled sheep. # When herbage 
is scarce, as in mountainous, and sterile regions, 
these kinds of sheep may prove profitable; I am 
however, decidedly in favor of our own im¬ 
proved fine wooled sheep. The same necessity 
does not exist with us, as here, to raise sheep 
for their carcass only, and it is of no conse¬ 
quence whether the sheep mature at three, four, 
or five years. Wool with us, must be the first 
consideration. Though I am satisfied that we 
can have not only good wool "but good carcass 
also. At any rate it is of the very first impor¬ 
tance to us as a nation, that we raise our own 
wool, both fine and coarse. The only way that 
coarse-wooled sheep can be made profitable with 
us, is for the small farmer, who keeps from 20 to 
50 or 60 sheep. By taking good care of his 
ewes, providing them with plenty of roots, and 
good warm shelter, he might manage to have 
his-lambs drop early in winter, perhaps in Janu¬ 
ary. By that means they would come into the 
market early in the season and thus command a 
very high price. I should only use the long- 
wooled and large sheep, when early maturity, 
and large size are the two great requisites. Of 
the long-wooled kinds, I prefer the Cotswold to 
all others. By far the largest number of the 
sheep in the market were of the long-w'ooled 
breed, being grades from crosses with the Cots¬ 
wold and Liecester. 
They have almost as great a variety of hogs 
here as we have at home. I have seen some 
hundreds, indeed thousands in Ireland, and the 
Provincial markets, but a small number of them 
were pure Berkshires. The Irish Grazier is a 
very good hog, when it had been crossed with 
the Berkshire it was a very fine animal prefer¬ 
able to the full blood of either. I think from 
all I have seen, that the Berkshires are not large 
enough for our use, as I have rarely seen them 
keep up to the size of those I have seen in the 
breeders pen. For the purpose of crossing 
with the common hog I consider the Berkshires 
invaluable. They do not generally make thei : 
pork as fat as is the custom with us. In Ireland 
in particular the hogs brought to market were 
generally what we should call light pork, 
although Pat feeds his pig better than he does 
his family. 
Of their horses, I have seen but two kinds 
that I think would be at all useful to us. The 
coach horse which is seen in most perfection in 
Yorkshire, is a fine animal, and a judicious 
* We believe the majority of British authority on this, 
subject deny any admixture of a foriegn cross on the 
original South Down, in the splendid examples afford¬ 
ed of that breed at the present day. Eds. 
