95. A breed of sheep, which is well known in Northumberland by the name of Cheviot sheep, produces very admirable mutton and wool of fine texture. Of the milk of these sheep great quantities of cheese are made, which is sold at a low price. This, when three or four days old, becomes very pungent, and is in considerable esteem for the table.
96. The Shetland islands produce a kind of sheep so small as seldom to exceed the weight of thirty or forty pounds. Their wool is sufficiently soft to be adapted even to clothing of the most delicate texture. A pair of stockings that were made of it were so fine as to be sold for six guineas. The skins of these sheep with the fleece on are capable of being converted into a fur of great value; and, when the wool is stripped from them, they are, as leather, peculiarly estimable for aprons, and are purchased by mechanics for this purpose at double the price of other skins of the same size.
97. It is to the breed called Dorsetshire sheep that the London markets are principally indebted for the house-lamb, which, at an early part of the season, bears so high a price. After the lambs are produced they are confined in small dark places, and never see the light, except when brought out to be fed by the ewes; and, at the times when thus brought out, their cabins are cleansed, and littered with fresh straw, as a great part of their value depends upon the cleanliness in which they are kept.
98. The mutton of the Heath sheep, a breed which is found in most of the north-western parts of England, and even as far as the western Highlands of Scotland, is accounted peculiarly excellent; and immense numbers of these sheep are annually sold at the north country fairs. The animals themselves are hardy and active, and well adapted to subsist in healthy and mountainous districts.
99. MERINO SHEEP are a celebrated Spanish breed of sheep, with small horns, white face and legs, small bones, a loose skin hanging from the neck, the wool fine, the external part of the fleece dark brown in consequence of the dust adhering to it, the interior delicate white, and the skin of rosy hue.
The celebrity of this breed, for the production of a remarkably fine wool, has been such, that all the highest priced cloths manufactured in this country, until of late years, were made of Spanish wool. In the year 1787 some of these sheep were first introduced into England. And, although it was formerly a prevailing opinion that the excellence of their fleece depended, in a great degree, upon the temperature of the Spanish climate, it has been satisfactorily ascertained that the fineness of Spanish wool is not in the slightest degree impaired by breeding the sheep in this country. Even in Hungary sheep of this kind have, for many years, been so successfully reared, that much of the fine wool used in our clothing countries has been imported from thence. The average weight of the Merino fleece is about three pounds and half. It has lately been a great object of attention in England to improve our own breeds, particularly the Ryeland, by a mixture with merinos, and this cross breed is stated to retain all the principal characteristics of the Spanish race. The mutton of these sheep, for size and flavour, is much in demand, and sells in the market at a higher price than that of most other kinds of sheep.
100. The BROAD-TAILED SHEEP are a very remarkable kind of sheep, distinguished by their tails being extremely large, and so long as sometimes to drag upon the ground.
They are found in several parts of Persia, Syria, Egypt, and other eastern countries.
The tails of these animals are almost wholly composed of a substance resembling marrow, and sometimes they are equal in weight to one-third of the whole carcase. To prevent them from chafing against the ground, the shepherds not unfrequently put boards, with small wheels, under them, attached to the hinder parts of the animal. The substance of these tails is in great demand, instead of butter, for culinary purposes; and it forms an ingredient in several kinds of dishes. The fleece of the broad-tailed sheep is peculiarly long and fine, and, in Thibet, is manufactured into shawls and other articles of peculiarly delicate texture, which form a considerable source of wealth to the inhabitants.
Of these, and of another kind of sheep called Tartarian or fat-rumped sheep, the hinder parts of which are so excessively fat as entirely to enclose the tail, there are great numbers bred in Tartary. It is even stated that, on an average, 150,000 of them are annually sold at the fairs of Orenburgh, and a much greater number in some other places.