Sheep, latterly so intimately associated with the Highlands, bore but a very small proportion to the number of black cattle. Indeed, before sheep-farming began to take place upon so large a scale, and to receive encouragement from the proprietors, the latter were generally in the habit of restricting their tenants to a limited number of sheep, seldom more than one sheep for one cow. This restriction appears to have arisen from the real or supposed interest of the landlord, who looked for the money part of his rent solely from the produce of sale of the tenants’ cattle. Sheep were thus considered not as an article of profit, but merely as part of the means by which the farmer’s family was clothed and fed, and therefore the landlord was anxious that the number should not be more than was absolutely necessary. In a very few years after 1745, a complete revolution took place in this respect. The old native sheep of the Highlands, now rare, though common in some parts of Shetland, is thus described by Dr Walker. “It is the smallest animal of its kind. It is of a thin lank shape, and has short straight horns. The face and legs are white, the tail extremely short, and the wool of various colours; for, beside black and white, it is sometimes of a bluish grey colour, at other times brown, and sometimes of a deep russet, and frequently an individual is blotched with two or three of these different colours. In some of the low islands, where the pasture answers, the wool of this small sheep is of the finest kind, and the same with that of Shetland. In the mountainous islands, the animal is found of the smallest size, with coarser wool, and with this very remarkable character, that it has often four, and sometimes even six horns. “Such is the original breed of sheep over all the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. It varies much indeed in its properties, according to the climate and pasture of different districts; but, in general, it is so diminutive in size, and of so bad a form, that it is requisite it should be given up, wherever sheep-farming is to be followed to any considerable extent. From this there is only one exception: in some places the wool is of such a superior quality, and so valuable, that the breed perhaps may, on that account, be with advantage retained.”