Originally from: Ron
                        
While reading "Conserving Lakeland", the magazine of Friends of The Lake District, I came across an interesting paragraph in a article headed "A Precious Resource":-

"During the pat 50 years and before the recent foot and mouth epidemic, sheep numbers in Cumbria had built up to 15% of the English national flock, half that of the entire Welsh flock. In conservation terms, this equated to six million mouths eating into the fabric of the countryside".

I find the words "eating into the fabric of the countryside" to say the least rather dramatic. Sheep are rather selective eaters, this statement seems to say that they are responsible the many scars on the Lakeland landscape!

But, what I also find interesting is the use of the figure of six million, we seem to have heard that somewhere before!!

Ron.