[11] Chalmers' Caledonia—Article, Galloway.
[12] It is to secure equality of temperature that the Spanish flocks are twice in the year exposed to the hazard of an overland journey of 400 miles, that they may pass the summer in the mountains of the north, and the winter in the southern plains.
[13] Edin. Philosophical Journal.
[14] By the old English law, no bull beef could be sold unless the bull had been baited.
[15] Dr Cline, in a communication to the Board of Agriculture, observes on this point: "Experience has proved, that crossing has only succeeded in an eminent degree, in those instances in which the females were larger, than in the usual proportion of females to males, and that it has generally failed when the males were proportionally large."
[16] It was owing to a peculiar view taken of this maxim, that so enormous sums were asked and given, for the hire of rams, at the time Mr Bakewell brought the new Leicester to perfection. That gentleman would never have obtained 1200 guineas for the hire of three rams if the speculators had not intended to procure nearly similar prices for the use of the offspring of these animals; and it may be pretty safely affirmed, that this traffic was ultimately the cause of much mischief to the breed in question, by inducing many to speculate on what was likely to prove a fashionable article, without caring much for the endurance of the really valuable points.
[17] Dr Sturm, professor of Agriculture, at Bonn, says, that a new race may be produced in the same number of years as are required for perfecting the teeth.
[18] Sheep are as liable to distortions of the skeleton as other animals. The Museum of Guy's Hospital contains a very good specimen of distorted spine taken from a sheep.
[19] Middlesex Report, p. 355.
[20] For the figures 1, 2 and 3 in Plate V. I am indebted to the Quarterly Journal of Agriculture for 1832, p. 869.