The South Hams breed of South Devon is a distinct variety, though it is believed to be descended from the ’Rubies’[750] and apparently has at some time been crossed with the Guernsey; they are good milkers and attain a great size, but the quality of the meat is decidedly inferior to that of North Devon.

From the earliest times the real Devon colour has been red, varying from a dark to a lighter or almost chestnut shade; half a century ago the lighter ones were more numerous than at present, and they are often of richer quality though less hardy than the dark ones.

The Sussex is larger and coarser than the Devon, of a deep brown chestnut colour, very hardy, a beef-producing but not a milk-yielding sort.

Longhorns,[751] a generation ago nearly extinct, once the favourite cattle of the midlands and portions of the north, are descended from a breed long established in the Craven district of Yorkshire.  ’The true Lancashire,’ said Young in 1770, ’were Longhorns, and in Derbyshire were a bastard sort of Lancashires.’[752] It was this breed that Bakewell improved, and of late years great efforts, chiefly in Warwickshire and Leicestershire, have been made to revive it.

The Red Polled, or Norfolk Polled, is the only hornless breed of English cattle, and they are good milkers and fatteners.

The Lincoln Red is a small red variety of the Shorthorn.

Many of the Welsh breeds have spread into the adjacent parts of England, and may be classified as North and South Welsh, or Angleseys and Castle Martins; black in colour, and generally with long horns.

The Scottish cattle—­the Aberdeen Angus, the Galloways, the Highland breed, and the Ayrshires—­are also seen in England, but not so often as the Jerseys and Guernseys from the Channel Islands, while the small Dexters and Kerrys from Ireland are favourites with some English farmers.

SHEEP

The sheep of the British Isles may be divided into three main classes:—­

1.  Longwools, containing Leicesters, Border Leicester’s, Cotswolds, Lincolns, Kentish, Devon Longwool, South Devon, Wensleydale, and Roscommon.

2.  Shortwools:  the Oxford Downs, Southdowns, Shropshires, Hampshire Downs, Suffolks, Ryelands, Somerset and Dorset Horned, and Clun Forest.

3.  Mountain breeds:  Cheviots, Blackfaced Mountain, Herdwick, Lonk, Dartmoor, Exmoor, Welsh Mountain, and Limestone.

These are all English except the Border Leicester, Cheviot, and Blackfaced Mountain, which are Scotch; the Welsh Mountain is of course Welsh, and the Roscommon Irish.

1.  The Leicesters, the largest and in many respects the most important of British longwool sheep, are the sheep which Bakewell improved so greatly.  They are capable of being brought to a great weight, and their long fine wool averages 7 lb. to the fleece.

The Border Leicesters are an offshoot of the last named, bred on the Scottish Border, and originating from the flock which George and Matthew Culley in 1767 took from the Tees to the Tweed.