THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



403 



Mr. J. Thomas (Bletsoe, Beds) wished just to 

 state his opiaion, as a breeder of sheep. A great 

 deal had been said which was very much to the pur- 

 pose, with regard to the crossing of dififerent races. For 

 some years he farmed in Essex ; and there he found no 

 sheep do so well as the Hampshire Downs. His practice 

 was to purchase ewes of that breed, and put to them 

 Leicester or long-woolled rams. The produce he 

 sold in the London market as fat lambs, and the ewes 

 when fat he also sold off. That had not much 

 bearing, perhaps, on the main question under con- 

 sideration, though he mentioned it because he was then 

 much in favour of Hampshire Down sheep. When he 

 bad got into Bedfordshire, he bought a number of ewes, 

 upwards of 200 perhaps, pure Leicesters, which had 

 been bred in-and-in. These sheep being very delicate 

 he crossed them with half-bred Lincolns, and this cross- 

 ing answered very well. It gave the produce more 

 frame and better constitution. After using the Lincoln 

 rams for two years he crossed this produce with 

 Hampshire Down rams, and though the rams were very 

 good the result was not satisfactory. The sheep had 

 lost that aptitude for fattening which in Bedfordshire 

 and other Midland Counties (where the tegs are gene- 

 rally sold off fat at 15 or 18 months old) was so very 

 important. The Hampshire Down cross would, no 

 doubt, do better where they could be kept for a second 

 shearing. He afterwards had recourse to Cotswold, and 

 then to Shropshire Down rams. Through these crosses 

 his sheep regained that aptitude for fattening which 

 they had lost through the Hampshire Downs. He had 

 now for the last two years been again using Lincoln 

 rams to his stock of ewes, so that his stuck of sheep may 

 be considered a cross from beginning to end (Laughter). 

 He greatly objected to the practice of breeding from the 

 same flock. He himself never kept a ram to the same 

 stock more than two years, and he found that by chang- 

 ing he obtained more mutton and wool. Mr. Howard 

 had remarked that in breeding more depended on the 

 male than on the female. 



Mr. Howard : As regards size. 



Mr. Thomas: His own experience did not tend to 

 support that view. He thought the result depended 

 chiefly on the female, though, of course, no one who 

 had a good female would put a bad male to it. 



Mr. G. DoBiTO (Lidgate, Newmarket) said he had 

 come to the meeting prepared to advance similar views 

 to those which had been propounded by Mr. Howard 

 had the advocates of pure-bred sheep stated anything 

 that was very strong in their favour. But Mr. Howard 

 had so completely anticipated everything that he could 

 say upon the subject, that he would not venture to tres- 

 pass further upon their attention. 



Mr. Corbet asked if there were not a good many 

 blackfaced sheep in the Eastern Counties ? 



Mr. DoBiTO — Yes, a great many. They were ori- 

 ginally a large-framed horned breed ; but through 

 judicious crossing with Sussex and Hampshire Downs, 

 they had lost their horns, but not their size. They had 

 lately been named the Suffolks, and, in his opinion, 

 were a very superior breed of sheep, being larger than 

 the Hampshires ; but with a smaller and better-formed 

 head. 



Mr. Coleman (Woburn) said he had been a 

 cross-breeder for the last seven or eight years, 

 and the practice he had adopted was to use the long- 

 woolled ram and the short-wooUed ewe. By getting 

 the best male animals his flocks were kept right, and he 

 could depend upon what they would be. One great 

 advantage of not going beyond the first cross was, the 

 flock being of the short-wooled breed did not re- 

 quire so much food as either a long wool or 

 cross-bred flock, and in winter, upon light lands, 



this was a great consideration. A few persons were 

 trying the system of putting the cross-bred ewe 

 to the long-woolled ram for the sake of getting a 

 larger animal and a greater amount of wool ; but he 

 could not learn that they were likely to continue that 

 practice very long. (Hear, hear.) The club were much 

 indebted to Mr. Howard for the information contained 

 in his paper ; but he could have wished that gentleman 

 had told them a little more about what he himself had 

 done as a producer of cross-bred sheep ; and he hoped 

 that before the discussion terminated he would state his 

 reasons for breeding from cross-bred sheep ov<r and over 

 again. He(Mr. Coleman) had mii^raled from Norfolk into 

 Bedfordshire, where he found himself standing, as it 

 were, between two breeds — ihe long-woolled sheep to 

 the north and the short-woolled sheep to the south, in 

 a district not exactly suitable to either one sort or the 

 other. Now, were Mr. Howard to go to Norfolk, he 

 would find himself with comparatively few followers j 

 but in Bedfordshire the state of things was totally dif- 

 ferent, and he (Mr. Colemanj was obliged to own, 

 though he did it reluctantly, that he was a convert to 

 his way of thinking. 



Mr. Thomas (late of Lidlington) wished to point out 

 the fallacious idea which was entertained by some gentle- 

 men, especially young farmers, that because certain 

 breeds of sheep were of greater weight than others, they 

 must therefore be necessarily more profitable. It had 

 occurred to his mind, whilst listening to the present 

 discussion, that a long series of experiments had been 

 carried on by the late General Wemyss upon the Prince 

 Consort's Flemish farm. Year after year General 

 Wemyss had tried comparative amounts of food con- 

 sumed by the pure-bred Southdown and the pure-bred 

 Hampshire down ; and he arrived at the conclusion that i 

 five Hampshires ate as much as 8 of the others. The extra I 

 weight, therefore, which so many Hampshire breeders 

 prided themselves upon, as compared with the South- 

 down, might, after all, be obtained too dearly. 



Mr. Fisher Hobbs (Boxted, Essex), having thanked 

 Mr. Howard for his paper, said that the main feature of 

 the question, so far as the public were concerned, was 

 the best mode of producing the most good mutton for 

 the consumer; but the point for the farmer's considera- 

 tion was, what breed of sheep would pay him best per 

 acre (Hear, hear) ; and whether the cross-bred short- 

 wools or long wools of pure breeds were the best for 

 that purpose. His own opinion was that climate, soil, 

 and management must be the great criterion (Hear, 

 hear). The first point which had struck him in 

 Mr. Howard's remarks, was the statement that the 

 cross-breeds of this country having much increased 

 within the last few years, folding had become pro- 

 portionably less general. If that were so, and the 

 only merit of the cross-bred sheep was that of capability 

 of fattening and early maturity, the question was 

 whether the producer was not losing as much one way 

 as the consumer was gaining the other. JMr. Howard 

 had asserted that the practice of folding sheep had de- 

 creased since the introduction of the use of 

 artificial manures. Now, if those manures were of 

 the value which they were considered to be, and they 

 were being introduced to such an extent that some per- 

 sons laid out as much as ^'l an acre upon the average 

 extent of the farm, the increased production arising from 

 their use ought also to give an augmented supply of 

 roots, tVc, to be folded or fed off" upon the land. 

 He was not inclined to think, therefore, that the folding 

 of sheep had decreased in this country. Certain breeds 

 were better adapted to one climate than to another, and 

 at certain periods of the year were more useful. He 

 had frequently seen, wjien a hurdle was left open in a 

 sheep-fold, that the animals would by choice assemble 



