pe 
emt 
from 30 Ib. to 35 Ib. per quarter. They were 
called Bampton Notts, from the village of Bamp- 
ton, and in contradistinction to a race of small- 
bodied, brown-faced, flat-sided, crooked-leggzed 
animals in their vicinity, who bore the name of 
Southam. Notts. The present breed are quite 
free from all the characteristic defects of the 
old; and though diminished in bulk, are still 
among the largest sheep in Britain. The far- 
mers of Devonshire are proud of them, and seem 
to like them all the better for their comparative- 
ly great size. 
The Cotswold or Gloucester sheep inhabit the 
Cotswold hills in the eastern part of Gloucester- 
shire. They are a stationary or retrograde cross 
between an old breed of the same district and 
the new Leicester. But whether that old breed 
were originally long-woolled or short-woolled, and 
whether they became known at a comparatively 
recent period or inhabited the Cotswold hills 
from a very remote date, are matters of dispute. 
Some persons even imagine that they were the 
origin of the Merino sheep ; and others strongly 
suppose them to have been introduced at no 
earlier a period than some time in the course of 
the last century. But whatever were their pre- 
vious history, the immediate ancestors of the 
present breed are known to have been larger in 
body and coarser in form than they, and are said 
also to have borne a greater weight of wool. The 
| crossing of them with the new Leicesters began 
| about 60 or 65 years ago, and was steadily and 
sweepingly prosecuted till not an individual 
| could be found unmodified by the Leicester blood. 
But after a lapse of 30 or 40 years, “ the Cots- 
wold breeders began to apprehend that their 
flocks were losing too much in carcase and fleece, 
and becoming less fitted for the climate of their 
native hills ; and from that period, a preference 
began to be given to the native stock ; and for 
many years past, crossing has been scarcely 
practised, and most of the breeders have been 
desirous to revert more to the former model of 
their breed.” The present Cotswold sheep are 
somewhat larger in size, and have the wool 
closer on the body, than the highest bred new 
Leicesters ; and they are hardier, more prolific, 
better milkers, and more amply adapted to com- 
mon treatment; and therefore have they, in 
many places, become the successful rivals of the 
Leicesters, both for constituting entire stocks 
and for crossing with other breeds. 
The new Oxford sheep, or improved Oxford 
sheep, are simply the best or most refined sub- 
variety of the modern Cotswolds, and differ from 
the Gloucestershire subvarieties mainly in having 
flesh of a firmer consistency and a finer texture. 
“They are bred principally in Oxfordshire and 
the surrounding districts,—particularly in the 
neighbourhood of Broadwell, Charlbury, and 
Sevenhampton. They are of large dimensions, 
and have a great propensity to fatten, arising 
chiefly from their wide frame, quietude, and open 
TV ee 
193 
texture of flesh, which is of quick growth, and 
consequently expands itself more rapidly than 
many other qualities; but they do not possess 
that exactness of form peculiar to smaller ani- 
mals, though they have a better carriage. For 
many years, the male animals have been eagerly 
sought after, with a view to increase the size 
and frame of other long-woolled breeds.” 
The new Leicester or the Dishley sheep origin- 
ated in a series of systematic experiments, begun 
about the year 1755, and conducted by Robert 
Bakewell of Dishley in Leicestershire. What 
old breeds he used in these experiments, and in 
what proportions he employed them, or whether 
he used some permanently and others transiently, 
or some predominantly and others subordinately, 
are matters of mere conjecture and much dispute. 
He chose to be mysterious; and he managed to 
make all the sources of his experiments a per- 
petual secret. The old Leicester breed, who 
might come most readily to his hand, were large 
coarse animals, with an abundant fleece. and a 
fair disposition to fatten, —and they possibly 
contributed not a little to his results; but other 
long-woolled breeds, particularly the old Lin- 
coln, and two extinct races in respectively War- 
wickshire and the valley of the Tees, are also 
conjectured to have been more or less in requisi- 
tion; and even breeds of widely different charac- 
ters, especially the Ryeland, the Southdown, and 
some other short-woolled races, may possibly 
have lent their aid. But though Bakewell’s sub- 
jects are conjectural, both the principles on 
which he worked them into a new breed, and 
the practices by which he rendered the breed 
distinct and permanent, are well known. “He 
perfectly understood,” says Professor Low, “the 
relation which exists between the external form 
of an animal and its aptitude to become fat in a 
short time. He saw that this relation did not 
depend upon size, nor, in the case of the sheep, 
on the power of the individual to yield a large 
quantity of wool. He therefore departed from 
the practice of all former breeders of the long- 
woolled sheep, who had regarded size and abun- 
dant growth of wool as primary properties in 
the parents. Holding bulk of body, and the pro- 
duce of the fleece, to be secondary properties, 
Bakewell directed especial attention to the ex- 
ternal form which indicates the property of 
yielding the largest quantity of muscle and fat, 
with the least bone and what is usually termed 
offal. He aimed, too, it is said, at producing 
the fat on the most valuable parts; but this is 
merely a subsidiary property, dependent upon 
general harmony of conformation. Progressively 
perfecting his animals by skilful selection, he 
necessarily continued to breed from his own 
stock, and did not scruple to connect together 
animals the nearest allied in blood to one an- 
other. This system, continually pursued, not 
only gave a permanency to the characters im- 
printed on his sheep, constituting a breed, in 
N 
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