ABSTRACT
I N the nineteenth century sheep developed, as did cattle, along lines of consolidation of a number of breeds which had origi-nated in the previous century, or earlier; but with the addition of a few new but most important breeds which were manufactured within the period. Before this time there had been found almost everywhere local variations of the main types of sheep-the shortand rniddlewoolled heaths, the longwools and the Linton or Scottish Blackface family. The heath sheep in particular existed in an inextricable tangle of varieties, which had grown up as a result of environment, with no very fluid movement of stock between one locality and the next to offset the formation of regional types. In the period under review the dominance of a number of the improving breeds-notably the Dishley and Culley Leicesters, the Cheviots and the Southdowns-tended to wipe out the agriculturally recessive pockets of old sorts of sheep or, by cross-breeding, to manufacture new breeds out of them. The older local types of the heath in particular were now fast disappearing. It is a commonplace of contemporary farm literature that very few of, say, the Nottingham greyfaces or the similar sheep of Charnwood Forest then remained where, half a century before, they had been the usual sheep of every little flockmaster in the district.l
None the less, the peculiarly close relation of the sheep to its environment saw to it that the new or the improved old breeds did not become condensed into a small handful of survivors. The Shorthorn, overriding all but the extremes 'of climate or altitude, penetrated to most parts of Britain: the sheep, far more susceptible to even quite small variations in these elements, did not become entirely dominated by the Leicesters among longwools or the Southdowns among shortwools. Rather, these two improved breeds were discreetly used to lead the most useful of the old breeds along improving paths, without changing too radically their hereditary suitability to their environment. In consequence, nearly two score of sheep breeds survived, in some form, their immersion in the eighteenth and nineteenth century melting pot, to play continuing roles of varying usefulness in the twentieth century. Their multiplicity gives rise to much criticism among foreigners from lands where the great extents of the natural regions permit the standardization of sheep husbandry upon two or three breeds: but for very few of the many British breeds of sheep can no adequate reason be found for their survival.
