Leicester Sheep.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 813, 30 September 1887, Page 19

Leicester Sheep.

Tbe original sheep of Leicestershire was a large animal, with co3r£.ely-grained flesh, which had almost no flavour. The natural habit of the race was to feed very slowly, aud it therefore arrived at maturity late. It. shape tho sheep was long of carcase, flitsided, largeboned, clumsy aud ungainly. But it showed, good weight, and the length of tho staple of its wool made it prominent among the long-woolsd vatieies, whose other types were the Teeswater the Cotswold, the Heath, the Dartmoor, (or Bamston), the Lincoln, the Romney Marsh, the Berkshire, and the Exmoor. The Leicester also possessed great individuality, and impressed itself firmly upon all strains of blood with which it was crossed. Whence it citne, or whether it was brought to find its home in tbe pastures, and on the sward of Leicester, shire, and the adjoining counties of luxuriant midland England, are facts lost ia the silence of remote antiquity.

Nothwitbstandieg the advantages which size and length of wool gave it, the ancient Leicester was an unprofitable animal. Nor did it advance to a first place in the wool and mutton world until Bake well, of Dishley, seeking to put all its inherent value to tho utmost use, began his improvement of the race, with results which many breeders since his day have attempted to emulate, and whose efforta never will cease to have affect upon the production and development of all olasses and grades of live stock. Bake well’s theory ' was utterly different from that of former breeders in Le ; ce3tershire ; they had been guided by a wish to obtain and maintain great s’ze of carcase, regardless of shape, aud t> secure a heavy wool-clip, whatsver the fate of the mutton. Bakewell concluded that shape and habit of ready fattening were qualities of the utmost importance, which sheep of large structure and heavy bones did not possess. They were extravagant feeders, but they did not havethe faculty of rendering the feed tithe best advantage. Thus he wasled to the opinion that money in sheep-breeding was to he had out of a sheep smaller in size, for it could make weight more rapidly upon a less quantity of food.

What was actually accomplished by Mr Bakewell, the reader will note clearly from an account of .it by a Northumberland farmer, who describes the improved Leicester as peculiarly distinguished from the other long-woo Jed breeds by their fine, lively eyes, straight, broad flat backs, and round, barrel-like bodies, small bones, thin pelts, and inclination to make fat at an early age. The (Dishley improved Leicester) breed is not only peculiar for its fat, bnt also for the fineness of the grain of its mutton, and the superior flavour of it, above that of all other long-wooled sheep, so as to fetch nearly as good a price in many markets, as that of the small Highland, and other shortwooled breeds. The general weight of the carcase is eighteen to twenty pounds, the quarter for ewes of three to four years, and twenty to twenty-five pounds for wethers of two years old, while the wool averages eight pounds to the fleece, with a length of staple ranging from six to fourteen inches. Mr Bakewell himself was enabled to let one of his improved rams, the famous ‘ Two-pounder,’ for so large a sum as 800 guineas (4,200d015., in a single season, at the same time reserving for himself oae-third of the ewes produced, which exemplifies the result of his improved system of breeding yet more forcibly.

What Bakeweli’a method had been the world has never learned. He retained the secret of it with utmost caution, so much ho as to have wrought one of our own country's most distinguished authorities and publicists—-the -late Hon. Henry S. Randall—to that high pitch of indignation which led him to observe : ‘ The whole management of the famous ' Dishley Society ’ betrays selfishuess the most intense, and, in plain English, meanness the most unalloyed. Should a man claiming to ba a gentleman, in this country make valuable discoveries in breeding, or in any other department in husbandry, and closely conceal them from the public, his conduct would meet with universal repreheasion and contempt.’ He believed that he owed his success to the virtues of wise selection of breeding animvls, and having started out in a cert tin direction, to a faithful persistent adherence to tbe priuciples which he determined upon in the outae*. The new Leicester has found it a way into every portion of the world, wherever tha Briish Colonial system has found a footim,-, aud into the countries of Cont-nan’al Europe, as also within the United Str-ti-, from se» to sea, in every State and Territory, oar posaee. sion of the race having grown from the small impoi t ttiou made about 1812 by Mr Christopher Dunn, of Albany, N. Y. With us, however, the new Leicestere have not proven so great favourites, in an ‘ all round’ way as some other of tho British breeds, because when highly bred the sheep are indifferent nurses, and rather indifferent breeders ; but judicious crossing makes good these deficiencies to a

very large extent, and the blood serves well in mixture with the other bloods found in American hacks.—American Agriculturist.