An account of the improvements on the estates of the Marquess of Stafford, in the counties of Stafford and Salop, and on the estate of Sutherland : with remarks. Pt.1, Sutherland / by James Loch.
- James Loch
- Date:
- 1820
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: An account of the improvements on the estates of the Marquess of Stafford, in the counties of Stafford and Salop, and on the estate of Sutherland : with remarks. Pt.1, Sutherland / by James Loch. Source: Wellcome Collection.
257/276 page 61
![[61] facture our wool. This annual creation from the Alpine plants of twenty thousand carcases of mutton, and one hundred thousand fleeces of wool, and also the creation of twenty thousand barrels of herrings, nothing of which existed in 1809, must affect the population. I don’t say in England, &c. where the food is used, but at home where all classes enj oy so much more of the comforts of life the reward of their increased industry. You remem- ber I sent you lists of names of the people of 1811 and 1815, taken and sworn to by the proper officers, which proved how the increase was then begun. In place of the few scores (perhaps from two to three score) of high- land families who have since emigrated, I am convinced there are five scores of south country families imported ; and that, a trial wiU show no diminution of people in 1820. But to return to the subject chalked out for me. The Cheviot sheep is a true moss and mountain sheep, when left to themselves as they ought, as much as possible, in such a country to he, they scatter and straggle in threes and fours over the waste, and a score of them is rarely to be seen together. The merino sheep which I have bred pretty extensively in the highlands is of quite a different nature. They are decidedly mountain sheep hut not moss sheep. When pinched for food they resort to the Alpine plants which grow in the peat bog, but they will not do so of choice. They range aU in one lot, that is, of whatever number the flock or hirsel con- sists, it is found all in one place, feeding like a drove passing through a country, and they are either on one of the spots of fine grass in the mountain, or travelling from one of these to another. Nothing will induce](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b24880395_0257.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
