About the middle of the last century, Robert Bakewell, of Dishley, in Leicestershire, first applied himself to the improvement of the sheep in that country. Before his improvements, aptitude to fatten and symmetry of shape--that is, such shape as should increase as much as possible the most valuable parts of the animal, and diminish the offal in the same proportion--were entirely disregarded. Perceiving that smaller animals increased in weight more rapidly than the very large ones, that they consumed less food, that the same quantity of herbage, applied to feeding a large number of small sheep, would produce more meat than when applied to feeding the smaller number of large sheep, which alone it would support, and that sheep carrying a heavy fleece of wool possessed less propensity to fatten than those which carried one of a more moderate weight, he selected from the different flocks in his neighborhood, without regard to size, the sheep which appeared to him to have the greatest propensity to fatten, and whose shape possessed the peculiarities which, in his judgment, would produce the largest proportion of valuable meat, and the smallest quantity of bone and offal. He was also of opinion that the first object to be attended to in breeding sheep is the value of the carcass, and that the fleece ought always to be a secondary consideration; and this for the obvious reason that, while the addition of two or three pounds of wool to the weight of a sheep's fleece is a difference of great amount, yet if this increase is obtained at the expense of the animal's propensity to fatten, the farmer may lose by it ten or twelve pounds of mutton. The sort of sheep, therefore, which he selected were those possessed of the most perfect symmetry, with the greatest aptitude to fatten, and rather smaller in size than the sheep generally bred at that time. Having formed his stock from sheep so selected, he carefully attended to the peculiarities of the individuals from which he bred, and, so far as can be ascertained--for all of Mr. Bakewell's measures were kept secret, even from his most intimate friends, and he died without throwing, voluntarily, the least light on the subject--did not object to breeding from near relations, when, by so doing, he brought together animals likely to produce a progeny possessing the characteristics which he wished to obtain.