or other long
wooled sheep. They have all signally failed. The forms,
characteristics and qualities of breeds so unlike seem to be
incompatible with one another. A cross of the Merino buck and
Leicester ewe gives progeny which is of more rapid growth than the
Merino alone, and is hardier than the Leicester. It is a good cross
for the butchers' use, but not to be perpetuated. Improvement in the
Merino should be sought by skillful selection and pairing the parents
in view of their relative fitness to one another.

The LEICESTER, or more properly the New Leicester, is the breed which
Bakewell established, and is repeatedly referred to in the preceding
pages. It has quite superseded the old breed of this name. His aim was
to produce sheep which would give the greatest amount of meat in the
shortest time on a given amount of food, and for early maturity and
disposition to fatten, it still ranks among the highest. The
objections to the breed for New England are, that they are not hardy
enough for the climate, and require richer pastures and more abundant
food than most farmers can supply. Its chief value in such locations
is for crossing upon ordinary sheep for lambs and mutton.

The COTSWOLDS derive their name from a low range of hills in
Gloucestershire. These have long been noted for the numbers and
excellence of the sheep there maintained, and are so called from Cote,
a sheepfold, and Would, a naked hill. An old writer says:--"In these
woulds they feed in great numbers flocks of sheep, long necked and
square of bulk and bone, by reason (as is commonly thought) of the
weally and hilly situation of their pastures, whose wool, being most
fine and soft, is held in passing great account amongst all nations."
Since his time, however, great changes have passed both upon the sheep
and the district they inhabit. The improved Cotswolds are among the
largest British breeds, long wooled, prolific, good nurses, and of
early maturity. More robust, and less liable to disease than the
Leicesters, of fine symmetry and carrying great weight and light
offal, they are among the most popular of large mutton sheep.

The SOUTH DOWN is an ancient British breed, taking its name from a
chalky range of hills in Sussex and other counties in England about
sixty miles in length, known as the South Downs, by the side of which
is a tract of land of ordinary fertility and well calculated for sheep
walks, and on which probably more than a millio