12 
THE SHEEP. 
SOFT-WOOLLED SHEEP OF WALES. 
A staple production of Wales being its Sheep, a question of much interest is the manner in which the different breeds may be 
improved. The people of Wales, with the attachment to old habits which distinguishes them, are averse to changes, and in the case 
of their Sheep there are obstacles to improvement, independent of the habits of the people. A great part of the whole mountain pas¬ 
tures is common. Under such a system it is difficult to introduce a beneficial management of Sheep. At present the treatment of the 
animals is defective in a high degree. No care is used in the selection of the breeding parents, and no provision is made for the proper 
feeding of the animals in winter ; they are left in a state of nature, and scarcely looked to but when they are to be caught for divesting 
them of the fleece. It is not uncommon to shear the lambs in the first year, a practice highly detrimental in a moist and elevated 
country ; bnt the still worse practice exists of weaning the lambs at an early season, in order to milk the ewes. The lambs born in 
March are frequently weaned in May, and the ewes are milked night and morning until the middle of September. This miserable 
system is calculated to destroy the vigour of the Sheep and take away the means to produce and rear a healthy offspring; and 
until it is abandoned we may be assured that the Sheep of the Welsh mountains will continue puny and degenerate. The sub¬ 
stitution of another breed would not remedy the evil, if this destructive management were continued, and therefore the primary 
improvement of the Sheep of Wales must be a change of the system of management. 
It were certainly to be desired, that the ancient breeds of these mountains could be preserved, as being naturalized to the coun¬ 
try, and producing a kind of wool, which is suited to a useful class of manufactures ; yet, undoubtedly, individual breeders will - 
find it more for their interest to adopt a breed already improved, than to incur the long delay and expense of improving the existing 
ones. Crossing will probably be resorted to more frequently than an entire substitution of a new breed ; and it is important, that 
the breeders proceed with judgment in the system of crossing which they adopt. They should select the breed which experience 
shows to be the best calculated to amalgamate with the existing race. The most suitable for this purpose seems, as has been al¬ 
ready said, to be the Cheviot, as being the inhabitants of an elevated country, and producing a kind of wool, which, though different 
from the Welsh, yet brings a good price in the market. The Southdowns, with all their valuable properties, seem scarcely so well 
suited to these humid mountains, as the more robust Cheviots ; and it is remarkable, that the Southdown Breed is less in favour with 
breeders in the moist climate of the western parts of this country, than towards the eastern coasts, where the drier climate is nearer 
to that of the Chalky Downs, which may be regarded as the native country of the race. Some attempts have been made to cross 
the Welsh Sheep with the Black-faced Heath Breed of Scotland. But a race superior to the Black-faced Heath Sheep could 
exist in the mountains of Wales, and the effect of such an intermixture would be to destroy that fineness of fleece which is proper 
to the existing breeds. 
