No one breed of sheep combines the highest perfection in all those points which give value to this race of animals. One is remarkable for the weight, or early maturity, or excellent quality of its carcass, while it is deficient in quality or quantity of wool; and another, which is valuable for wool, is comparatively deficient in carcass. Some varieties will flourish only under certain conditions of food and climate; while others are much less affected by those conditions, and will subsist under the greatest variations of temperature, and on the most opposite qualities of verdure.
In selecting a breed for any given locality, reference should be had, first, to the feed and climate, or the surrounding natural circumstances; and, second, to the market facilities and demand. Choice should then be made of that breed which, with the advantages possessed, and under all the circumstances, will yield the greatest net value of the marketable product.
Rich lowland herbage, in a climate which allows it to remain green during a large portion of the year, is favorable to the production of large carcasses. If convenient to a market where mutton finds a prompt sale and good prices, then all the conditions are realized which calls for a mutton-producing, as contradistinguished from a wool-yielding, sheep. Under such circumstances, the choice should undoubtedly be made from the improved English varieties—the South-Down, the New Leicester, and the improved Cotswolds or New Oxfordshire sheep. In deciding between these, minor and more specific circumstances must be taken into account. If large numbers are to be kept, the Downs will herd—remain thriving and healthy when kept together in large numbers—much better than the two larger breeds; if the feed, though generally plentiful, is liable to be somewhat short during the droughts of summer, and there is not a certain supply of the most nutritious winter feed, the Downs will better endure occasional short keep; if the market demands a choice and high-flavored mutton, the Downs possess a decided superiority. If, on the other hand, but few are to be kept in the same enclosure, the large breeds will be as healthy as the Downs; if the pastures are somewhat wet or marshy, the former will better subsist on the rank herbage which usually grows in such situations; if they do not afford so fine a quality of mutton, they—particularly the Leicester—possess an earlier maturity, and give more meat for the amount of food consumed, as well as yield more tallow.
The next point of comparison between the long and the middle woolled families, is the value of their wool. Though not the first or principal object aimed at in the cultivation of any of these breeds, it is, in this country, an important item of incident in determining their relative profitableness. The American Leicester yields about six pounds of long, coarse, combing wool; the Cotswold, somewhat more; but this perhaps counterbalanced by these considerations; the Downs grow three to four pounds of a low quality of carding wool. None of these wools are very salable, at remunerating prices, in the American markets. Both, however, will appreciate in proportion to the increase of manufactures of worsted, flannels, baizes, and the like. The difference in the weight of the fleeces between the breeds is, of itself, a less important consideration than it would at first appear, for reasons which will be given when the connection between the amount of wool produced and the food consumed by the sheep is noticed.
The Cheviots are unquestionably inferior to the breeds above named, except in a capacity to endure a vigorous winter and to subsist on healthy herbage. Used in the natural and artificial circumstances which surround sheep-husbandry in many parts of England—where the fattest and finest quality of mutton is consumed, as almost the only animal food of the laboring classes—the heavy, early-maturing New Leicester, and the still heavier New Oxfordshire sheep seem exactly adapted to the wants of producers and consumers, and are of unrivalled value. To depasture poorer soils, sustain a folding system, and furnish the mutton which supplies the tables of the wealthy, the South-Down meets an equal requirement.
Sufficient attention is by no means paid in many portions of the country to the profit which could be made to result from the cultivation of the sheep. One of the most serious defects in the prevalent husbandry of New England, for example, is the neglect of sheep. Ten times the present number might be easily fed, and they would give in meat, wool, and progeny, more direct profit than any other domestic animal, while the food which they consume would do more towards fertilizing the farms than an equal amount consumed by any other animal. It is notorious that the pastures of that section of the country have seriously deteriorated in fertility and become overrun with worthless weeds and bushes to the exclusion of nutritious grasses.
With sheep—as well as with all other animals—much or prolonged exercise in pursuit of food, or otherwise, is unfavorable to taking on fat. Some seem to forget, in their earnest advocacy of the merits of the different breeds, that the general physical laws which control the development of all the animal tissues as well as functions, are uniform. Better organs will, doubtless, make a better appropriation of animal food; and they may be taught, so to speak, to appropriate it in particular directions: in one breed, more especially to the production of fat; in another, of muck, or lean meat; in yet another, of wool. But, these things being equal, large animals will always require more food than small ones. Animals which are to be carried to a high state of fatness must have plentiful and nutritious food, and they must exercise but little, in order to prevent the unnecessary combustion in the lungs of that carbon which forms nearly four-fifths of their fat. No art of breeding can counteract these established laws of Nature.
In instituting a comparison between breeds of sheep for wool-growing purposes, it is undeniable that the question is not, what variety will shear the heaviest or even the most valuable fleece, irrespective of the cost of production. Cost of feed and care, and every other expense, must be deducted, in order to fairly test the profits of an animal. If a large sheep consume twice as much food as a small one, and give but once and a-half as much wool, it is obviously more profitable—other things being equal—to keep two of the smaller sheep. The next question, then, is,—from what breed—with the same expense in other particulars—will the verdure of an acre of land produce the greatest value of wool?
And, first, as to the comparative amount of food consumed by the several breeds. There are no satisfactory experiments which show that breed, in itself considered, has any particular influence on the quantity of food consumed. It is found, with all varieties, that the consumption is in proportion to the live weight of the grown animal. Of course, this rule is not invariable in its individual application; but its general soundness has been satisfactorily established. Grown sheep take up between two and a half and three and a third per cent. of their weight, in what is equivalent to dry hay, to keep themselves in store condition.