THE ROMNEY MARSH BREED. 
PLATE XVII. 
EWE in her second fleece; Bred by Samuel Bishop, Esq. of Losenham House, Kent. 
The Sheep of these Islands, it has been seen, may he divided into two general classes: 1. The smaller Sheep, inhabiting the 
mountains, moors, downs, and less fertile tracts, and producing, for the most part, short wool, fitted for preparation by the card, 
and the manufacture of cloths; and, 2. The larger Sheep, naturalized in the plains, marshes, and richer country, producing wool 
which is long in the filaments, and adapted to the manufacture of the stuffs termed worsted. With the progress of cultivation, 
and the increased means of supplying artificial food, the Long-woolled breeds have been continually gaining in numbers upon the 
Short-woolled. They may be divided into those which inhabit the fens and marshes, and those which are found in the inland and 
drier country. Of the former class, greatly the most numerous and remarkable was the Old Lincolnshire Breed already described, 
of which the remnants only now exist in the unmixed state. Another variety of the same class inhabited a limited tract of low 
ground termed Romney Marsh, situated on the southern coast of Kent, at the western entrance to the Straits of Dover. 
Romney Marsh is a plain of alluvial land nearly on the level of the sea, protected from the tides by dykes in the manner of 
the marshy flats of Holland. It extends from Hythe to the river Rother, about fourteen miles, and, at its broadest part, from 
Dengeness to Appledore, ten miles. It is divided into four districts, namely, Romney Marsh Proper, which is the largest 
and most westerly division ; Walland Marsh, the next adjoining to the westward ; Denge Marsh, with South-brooks on the south, 
and Guildford Marsh, the greater part of which is in the county of Sussex, on the west. This tract was known to the Anglo-Saxons 
by the name of Merseware or Mersewarum, and the inhabitants were designated by a term signifying marsh-men or fen-men. It 
was early fenced from the overflowings of the sea, and the conservation of the dykes and drainage was provided for by local laws and 
observances, which, so long ago as the reign of Henry III., were denominated ancient and approved customs. The land consists 
in part of infertile sand, gravel, or peat, but essentially of a deep rich alluvial clay, bearing the grasses and other herbage plants 
abundantly, and never having been subjected to the action of the plough. “ It ys,” says Leland, u a marvelous rank ground for 
fedying catel, by the reason that the grasse groweth plentifully upon the wose, sum tyme cast up there by the se.” The land is 
subdivided by rails, and deep ditches filled with stagnant water. There are scarcely any hedges or trees to afford shelter. The 
roads are broad miry paths, rudely fenced off from the marsh, and scarcely to be passed after heavy falls of rain. The inhabitants 
are few in number, scattered over the flat monotonous surface in mean hamlets, or villages, and mostly employed in tending the 
numerous sheep by which the ground is depastured. The air is humid from stagnant water, and the wealthier possessors of the 
farms reside, not in the marshes, but on the more elevated grounds surrounding them ; and the animals which are reared or fat¬ 
tened on the marsh, depend on the natural herbage which it produces. The principal produce is Sheep, which are reared in greater 
numbers than in any similar space in the kingdom. 
The ancient native Sheep of this district had coarse heads furnished with a tuft of wool, thick necks, long stout limbs, broad 
feet, narrow chests, flat sides, and great bellies. They were of the larger class of Sheep, but yet fell short in weight of the heavy- 
woolled Sheep of the eastern counties. The fleece weighed 7 lb. or 8 lb., had the usual qualities of long wool, was moderately soft, 
but unequal, and coarse on the posterior parts. These Sheep were slow in fattening, the wethers being rarely fit for use until they 
had completed their third year; but yet they were favourites with the butchers from their yielding a large proportion of internal, 
fat and offal. They bore well the exposed maritime situation in which they were placed, and acquired the habit of avoiding the 
dangerous ditches by which the country is intersected. 
The modern breed of Romney Marsh, which has extended into other parts of Kent, still exhibits much of the characters of 
the ancient family, the individuals being for the most part long-legged, flat-sided, and coarse in the extremities. But a surprising 
change has been undergone within the present century, and there now exist entire flocks which cannot be recognised as the de¬ 
scendants of the older race. This change has arisen in part from intermixture of the New Leicester blood, and in part from the 
increased attention of breeders to the form and qualities of the animals. 
The Leicester Breed found its way into these marshes more slowly than into most other parts of the kingdom, and violent 
prejudices, not yet subdued, for a time resisted its reception. But about the beginning of the present century, a general desire 
began to manifest itself amongst the more enlightened breeders to avail themselves of the means of improvement which a breed 
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