48 
THE SHEEP. 
THE RYELAND BREED. 
the fine wools of Spain and Germany, its relative value has greatly declined. Further, the Sheep are of small size, and inferior in 
economical value to the races which the country is capable of maintaining. Hence, the inducement to cultivate the breed has been 
constantly diminishing, so that it has now almost ceased to exist in a state of purity. 
The smallness of the size of the Ryelands led to innumerable experiments in crossing, with the design of increasing the weight 
of the animals, and in the hope of maintaining the fineness of the wool. The experiments failed, as might have been anticipated, 
with respect to the preservation of the quality of the wool, but succeeded in increasing the size of the progeny. But the system of 
crossing, which excited the greatest attention, and from which the most favourable results were anticipated, was with the Spanish 
Merino, soon after the introduction of that celebrated breed into England. Strenuous exertions were used by individuals and 
public associations to introduce the Spanish blood, and sanguine calculations were made of the benefits likely to result to the 
woollen manufactures of the country. Time and experience have proved the fallacy of all these hopes, and left to agriculturists 
an instructive lesson on the principles of breeding. The first crosses promised well; but, in breeding from the mixed progeny, it 
was found that, while the wool had become inferior to that of the Spanish stock, the hardy qualities, the goodness of form, and 
the aptitude to fatten, of the English breed, were impaired. The crosses became remarkably diminutive; and the whole labour 
of the experiments was found to have been thrown away. It was assumed that the Spanish Merino and the English Ryeland were 
the same race. A better knowledge of either would have shown that the two races were remarkably distinct in their characters ; 
and that, if any of the English breeds were suited to this kind of crossing, it was the Dorset and Pink-nosed Somerset, and not the 
diminutive Ry eland. This species of crossing has been long in disuse, but numbers of the flocks in Herefordshire and the adjoining 
counties still exhibit traces of the Spanish mixture. 
Some breeders endeavoured to improve the native race by selection of individuals and superior feeding. The breed, however, 
was naturally diminutive, and numerous generations of Sheep must have passed away before this radical character of the race could 
have been changed. The system, therefore, was resorted to, of effecting the end by crossing with larger animals, as the South- 
downs, the Leicesters, and the Cotswolds. It was found, however, that scarce any of our races of Sheep was with more difficulty 
amalgamated with others than the ancient Ryeland ; and a vast number of worthless Sheep were long produced in Herefordshire 
by these crosses. A better course was found to be to substitute at once the stranger stock, which it was proposed to cultivate. 
Numbers accordingly, chiefly Leicesters and Cotswolds, are now reared in the country, and the Ryeland breed is diminishing from 
year to year. It was from one of the few remaining flocks of the unmixed Ryeland, kept in the lower parts of Herefordshire, 
that the figures in the plate have been taken. It was the stock of the late Mr Tomkins of Kingspion, the distinguished 
improver of the modern breed of Hereford cattle. Mr Tomkins persevered in keeping up the breed of his native county. 
He succeeded in communicating to it greater symmetry of form, but he did not succeed in enlarging the size to the degree of ren¬ 
dering it of equal economical value with the races by which it has been supplanted. 
All the minor varieties of this once celebrated breed have partaken more or less of change. One variety, greatly distinguished, 
inhabited the Forest of Dean, a tract of the coal-formation lying between the Severn and Wye. This tract was formerly covered 
with one of the densest forests in England,—“ So dark and terrible,” says Camden, “ by reason of crooked and winding waies, as 
also the grisly shade thereof, that it made the inhabitants more fierce, and boulder to commit robberies.” By the discovery of mines 
in this forest, the woods were gradually thinned, and at last nearly extirpated ; and it then continued to be occupied by a kind of 
Sheep, which, until our own times, were held in the greatest estimation for the fineness of their wool. The Dean Forest breed has 
now disappeared in the pure state, having merged in the crosses of all kinds that have been made with it. A similar variety 
occupied the Malvern Hills on the confines of Worcestershire; but here the flocks have likewise become a mixture of various races. 
In Shropshire were several varieties of the same hornless sheep inhabiting the different forests and commons. The Chum Forest 
breed had wool weighing from 2 lb. to 3 lb. the fleece \ and the Shawberry breed, sometimes called the Tadpole, fiom its diminu¬ 
tive size, had wool of extraordinary tenuity and softness. The mere remnants of these and other varieties are now only to be 
found; the admixture of the races of the lower country, or of the mountain breeds of Wales, having nearly obliterated the former 
distinctions. 
Thus, the finest-woolled Sheep of the British Islands may be said to be extinct as a breed. Their former value, arising from 
the adaptation of their wool to the manufacture of native cloth, has been lost. Commerce now supplies us with wool more adapted 
to the purposes of the clothier; and other native races afford a material better suited, by the length and strength of its filaments, 
to the class of manufactures in which the combing wools, as they are termed, are employed. These longer-woolled Sheep ai e like¬ 
wise fitted to yield a larger return to the breeder who has artificial food at command; and hence the disappeai ance of the 
fine-woolled Sheep of the western counties is merely the result of the better cultivation of the country, and of changes in the 
channels of commerce and manufacturing industry. 
