“Inconvenient appendage I should say it would be,” remarked Louis. “The sheep cannot walk very easily with that heavy battledore knocking against its hocks. The tallow from that tail would make a good many candles, but it is a very troublesome sort of treasure when one has to run away from a wolf.”
“This breed is called the broad-tailed sheep. [[267]]Other sheep, particularly in southern Russia, have tails of moderate size, like the tails of our sheep, but very long so that they drag on the ground.”
“Again a hindrance when fleeing from the wolf,” Jules observed. “In its primitive state the sheep certainly had neither this long trailing tail catching in the bushes, nor that other one in the shape of a heavy load of tallow.”
“Neither had it the singular horns that it sometimes bears to-day. Some sheep have horns of excessive length and twisted in long spirals that sometimes stand erect on the top of the forehead, and sometimes point sidewise. Those weapons are more threatening than serviceable: they needlessly overburden the head and are a serious source of annoyance to the animal when it has to pass through a thicket of underbrush. As if to hamper themselves still more in the brambles, other breeds wear an addition to this inconvenient ornament. The sheep of the island of Cyprus have two pairs of horns, one standing straight up on the forehead, the other curving back behind the ears. Those of the Faroe Islands have three pairs, all arranged spirally and pointing backward. Our sheep, as a rule, have only two horns, rather small and making barely one turn at the sides of the head; apparently that is how the primitive species wore them. In fact the greater part of our flocks is composed of entirely hornless sheep. It is best for the animal, which is thus relieved of a useless load.
“These horns, double or triple in number, and [[268]]twisting in curious fashion, this tail so long that it trails on the ground, or else swollen with tallow and broad beyond measure, while showing us what singular modifications the body of the sheep is capable of, are of no use to us whatever. It is much to be preferred that the animal, profiting by the care we bestow upon it, should gain in weight and furnish more abundant food material. The English, who are great meat-eaters, were the first to ask themselves this question: how to make the sheep an abundant source of mutton chops and legs of mutton, or, in other words, how to increase to the utmost the proportion of it that can be eaten and at the same time diminish or even reduce to nothing that which cannot?
“A celebrated breeder, a benefactor to humanity—Bakewell was his name—solved the problem in England about a century ago. He said to himself: The sheep that I want as a producer of legs of mutton must have no horns, for these useless ornaments would mean so much pure loss in the total weight of the animal; the food required for the growth and maintenance of the horns would be better employed in producing flesh. For the same reason it should have only just enough wool to clothe it and protect it from the cold. The bones I cannot eliminate, the more’s the pity, as in their place I should prefer something of greater nutritive value. But as a matter of fact they are necessary to the animal: they are the indispensable framework for the flesh. If I cannot eliminate them, the bones shall at least be light, [[269]]thin, reduced in weight and size. When the leg of mutton is served at table, the knife must be able to penetrate it like a ball of butter and find in the center only a small, hard drum-stick. I will reduce in like manner all that is not meat and leave the sheep only what is strictly necessary for the functions of life.”
“And that came to pass as the breeder wished?” asked Jules.
“That came to pass just as Bakewell foresaw. In his sheepfolds the animal was transformed into an opulent source of meat, such as had never been seen before; it became a pair of enormous legs of mutton and a pair of enormous shoulders, led to pasture by a small head on four thin legs.”
“With large mutton chops mixed in?” Emile inquired.
“To be sure. A few figures will show you the importance of the result obtained. The gross weight of our ordinary sheep averages thirty kilograms, representing about twenty kilograms net of meat. The Leicester sheep, as the perfected breed developed by Bakewell’s exertions is called, weighs from sixty to one hundred and sometimes one hundred and fifty kilograms; and its net yield in meat varies from fifty to one hundred kilograms; that is, at the very lowest, two and a half times as much meat as our common sheep produces, and at the highest, which is exceptional, I admit, five times as much.”