districts it is easy to find flocks participating in the two neighbouring races. Thus, on the borders of Berry and La Sologne one meets with flocks originally sprung from a mixture of the two distinct races that are established in those two provinces. Among these then I chose such animals as seemed least defective, approaching, in fact, the nearest to, or rather departing the least from, the form which I wished ultimately to produce. These I united with animals of another mixed breed, picking out the best I could find on the borders of La Beauce and Touraine, which blended the Tourangelle and native Merino blood of those other two districts. From this mixture was obtained an offspring combining the four races of Berry, Sologne, Touraine, and Merino, without decided character, without fixity, with little intrinsic merit certainly, but possessing the advantage of being used to our climate and management, and bringing to bear on the new breed to be formed, an influence almost annihilated by the multiplicity of its component elements. Now, what happens when one puts such mixed-blood ewes to a pure New-Kent ram? One obtains a lamb containing fifty hundredths of the purest and most ancient English blood, with twelve and a half hundredths of four different French races, which are individually lost in the preponderance of English blood, and disappear almost entirely, leaving the improving type in the ascendant. The influence, in fact, of this type was so decided and so predominant, that all the lambs produced strikingly resembled each other, and even Englishmen took them for animals of their own country. But, what was still more decisive, when these young ewes and rams were put together, they produced lambs closely resembling themselves, without any marked return to the features of the old French races from which the grandmother ewes were derived. Some slight traces only might perhaps be detected here and there by an experienced eye. Even these, however, soon disappeared, such animals as showed them being carefully weeded out of the breeding flock. This may certainly be called "fixing a breed," when it becomes every year more capable of reproducing itself with uniform and marked features. Such was my secret, which, however, has been made no secret at all, but has been declared from the first in my entries at the shows of Poissy and Versailles. Such is the origin of the La Charmoise breed of sheep. We have already seen how important it is that you should not infuse into a new breed more than fifty per cent. of English blood, if you would preserve the French constitution, which alone suits the circumstances in which they have to pass their lives. The Charmoise breed not exceeding that proportion does retain the hardiness of a pure French race: the lambs are reared as easily as those of any French breed, getting over the summer just as : easily neither then nor later do they suffer more than our native breeds from heat or from drought. The mixed-blood mothers had been formed from breeds in general small, and possessing the usual qualities of small breeds, delicacy of shape, smallness of the head and the bony structure, temperance as to food. The Merinos alone had not these valuable qualities, but they entered in the proportion of 25 per cent. only into the mothers, and consequently of 124 per cent. only into the offspring. Their disadvantage, too, in these respects was compensated by their influence on the fleece. I may here remark that, in founding a breed, it is far better to choose ewes from small breeds, with the qualities already mentioned, than from breeds that are strongly timbered, bony, coarse, greedy, like those of northern and western France, which I tried myself, to my own heavy loss. Accordingly as fine or coarse ewes are used, so in proportion do the offspring show that coarse or fine character, difficult to describe for a writer, but easy to perceive for a connoisseur. Besides, it is an admitted fact, that a sheep affording 112 lbs. of meat is more expensive to feed than two sheep, each of 56 lbs. Luckily, on this head the interest of our butchers, the taste of our consumers, and the profit of our farmers are all in unison. The weight generally preferred in France for sheep is 56 lbs. At this point it is easy to stop the Charmoise breed. I say stop them, because weight is one of the things which man can most readily increase or diminish in any breed; in fact, as the size of the being to be fashioned depends upon the ram, it will be reproduced similar to the sire, if no obstinate resistance of another fixed breed be opposed to it. It will then develop itself more or less in proportion to the food received by the lamb. It is not difficult, by increase of food, to double, or even more than double, the result. By feeding differently lambs born from similar parents, we have brought some to the dead weight of 75 lbs. at 14 months, while others gave only 30 lbs. of meat at the same age. The weight of 56 lbs. may be taken as the mean between these two extremes. In putting my small mixed-blood ewes, that weighed alive not above 56 lbs., to heavy New-Kent rams which weighed often 225 lbs., one apprehension alarmed me-the fear, I mean, of losing ewes which had cost so much trouble, when the time came for their giving birth to the large offspring one naturally expected. But no such danger arose; and the reason seems to me clear. Whatever be the size of the ram, the germ develops itself only in proportion to the nourishment it receives. Now, while it remains in the womb of the small ewe it obtains but little support; consequently the lambs remained small, and the births took place without difficulty. In 2000 labours we had but one death that was occasioned by the immoderate size of the lamb. It was curious to see such small offspring engendered by such huge sires. But these little creatures, if well fed, soon began to grow rapidly, and it was not uncommon to see ewes sucked by lambs larger than themselves. From the first dropping of our lambs, the strongly-marked English character gave us the strongest hope that they would retain the excellences of the English fathers; and this hope was not disappointed. The young animals as they grew up preserved their beauty of form, maintained their condition without extraordinary food, and did not suffer from weaning. The ewe-lambs were carefully preserved, a few ram-lambs selected, and the rest castrated. The good condition of these tegs at the end of the first autumn induced us to fatten them. These young things fattened just like old sheep of French breeds, and at the end of winter yielded 56 to 65 lbs. of meat, with 11 to 13 lbs. of tallow. The next year the same cross was tried with the same success. The third year was still more interesting. Our first ewe-lambs, at the age of 20 months, had been put to the rams which had been saved. The offspring was most equal in quality, though proceeding from parents which were a first cross; indeed they were more level in appearance than the offspring of some native flocks. From that time now for some years there has been at La Charmoise a double set of lambs; one set from the New Kent rams and the mixed-blood ewes, another from rams and ewes the result of that cross. A remarkable circumstance continues to this very year-I mean the perfect resemblance of the two sets of lambs obtained by the two different methods. I have often divided them into lots, and then found it impossible, even by careful examination, to distinguish one set of lambs from the other. This fact is most important-it proves that the breed is established. It only remains, in order to attain the utmost fixity and perfection, that we select carefully the rams and the breeding ewes. This is what will be henceforth done. At first we kept all the ewelambs, in order to reach the amount of 500 breeding ewes, the limit of our establishment. We have now the power of selection, in order to keep up that number; and we have great encouragement, in the prizes* already won, still further to improve this breed by careful selection. NOTE. It was in the first number of this Journal the late Lord Spencer stated, he had observed that the worse bred the female is, the more likely is the offspring to resemble a well It is stated that the La Charmoise breed have taken prizes whenever they have been shown at Versailles or Poissy. bred sire; and he told me that, practically, he should prefer a cow of no breed, to an indifferent pure-bred cow, for a good thorough-bred bull. The principle, however, has never been so thoroughly carried out as in the above experiments at La Charmoise, for the communication of which I am indebted to Mr. Rives, the late diplomatic representative at Paris of the United States. Besides their practical value, I cannot but think they throw some little light on one of the most mysterious of all physiological problems-the renewal of the features of parents in the reproduction of animals. PH. PUSEY. XVII.-On the Subsequent Manuring Effects of Burned Clay. By J. J. MECHI, To Mr. Pusey. DEAR SIR-On the 10th of October, 1846, I made a communication to our Society on the subject of burned clay (vol. vii. p. 299). I therein stated that I had burned 400 cubic yards per acre on a poor plastic yellow clay, that 250 loads or yards per acre had been removed to other fields, and that the remaining 150 yards per acre were spread where burned. The field is opposite my residence, and, years having elapsed, it may be interesting to deduce the results after so long a period. The field, before burning, was a poor 2-years ryegrass lea, and my neighbours seriously predicted that by removing 250 yards per acre of the top soil I should ruin the field. Fortunately, anticipating such objection, and desirous to arrive at comparative results, I left about half an acre of the field undisturbed. It has been, since, all equally treated, viz. oats sown down with grassseeds, and is still in grass: so far from the burning and removal of so much soil being injurious, in every crop and to this very day the worst portion of the field is that which was unburned and unpillaged. The fact is interesting and encouraging to earthburners of strong clays. In every case in which I have used burned earth (I mean poor cold argillaceous subsoil clay, free from organic matter), I have during the last 7 years had reason to be satisfied with its advantages, which are still obvious. I am, dear Sir, yours truly, Tiptree Hall, Kelvedon, Essex, May 30, 1853. J. J. MECHI. XVIII. On the Silica Strata of the Lower Chalk. THE readers of this Journal will remember that in the Second The chemical investigation of these strata was undertaken from the conviction which we entertained that a knowledge of the composition of the various beds which in many cases come to the surface and form the staple soil of large tracts of country, and in others are but slightly covered with transported materials, would be of the greatest possible advantage to the agriculture of all those districts which are situated on the chalk formation: and indeed we believe that the extension of this method to the examination of other geological formations would be most desirable. One of the beds or strata in the series referred to was described under the name of "soft brown rock" above the gault; and as it is of this bed and of those of the same kind that we have now to speak, we shall make no apology for repeating the analysis here. In page 549 of the above-mentioned paper we find the description and analysis of the rock as follows:— "Immediately above the gault, with the upper member of which it insensibly intermingles, lies this soft white-brown rock, having the appearance of a rich limestone. It is very remarkable on account of its low specific gravity, and still more so considering its position by reason of the very small quantity of carbonate of lime which it contains. There are numerous small fissures in the rock, which constitute a natural drainage. It is one of the richest subsoils of the whole chalk series, being admirably adapted for the growth of hops, wheat, beans, &c., and indeed nearly the whole of the out-cropping of this subsoil from Farnham to Petersfield is under cultivation for the first-named crop. When exposed to frost the rock crumbles into a fine powder. In the neighbourhood of Farnham, during the last ten years, many thousands of tons have been dug and used as a manure, under the impression that it was a good marl.' This is so far mistaken as regards the meaning of the word marl, which, correctly speaking, should only be applied to a substance containing much carbonate of lime. All those persons who have employed it concur in expressing a favourable opinion of its effects; and particularly on some sandy soils the benefit derived from its application is most striking. That we are not to attribute this effect to the presence of lime in any form is evident from the composition of the substance as given below. 6 At the present time it is still extensively quarried for manure. This section of rock at Farnham is about 40 feet in thickness, and as it approaches the next stratum above it gradually assumes a harder character, and does not so readily moulder into soil by exposure. "Analysis of soft brown rock immediately above the gault:— VOL. XIV. Q |