By the Rev. Canon Jackson, F.S.A. 301 
subject archeologically, I may mention that the sheep, which you 
know so well as Southdowns, are not the original sheep of Wiltshire. 
The old sheep was that which was well known as the Wiltshire 
horned sheep, with large twisted horns. Some say it was not the 
very original, but they do not tell us what came before it. The 
_ Southdown sheep was introduced here from Sussex, only about 
_ ninety years ago, by a Mr. Mighell, of Kennet, and I believe that 
Mr. Thomas Davis, then steward at Longleat, and a Mr. Wood, of 
Longbridge Deverel, were great promoters of the new breed. 
Then, your pigs! If I were to stop anybody in the street in 
London, Dublin, or Edinburgh, and ask him suddenly, “ Pray, Sir, 
what is Wiltshire famous for?” an intelligent man would of course 
_ immediately say, “Stonehenge.” If that did not occur to his 
memory, he would certainly say, “‘ bacon.” Long may your county 
be famous for both. But your reputation for bacon was not earned 
by your present pig. Your present pig, with his fine skin, short 
snout, and cunning eye, is a China pig, or black African. The old 
pig, the archeological pig, was quite a different fellow. Large, 
_ white, long-eared: you fatted him well with corn: you kept him 
till he was a year-and-a-half, sometimes two years old, and then you 
killed him, and dried him with wood. Firmness is desired in bacon ; 
age gives that firmness. The present sort fatten sooner, and in 
delicacy of flesh are suverior; but they are better for york than 
bacon ; and bacon, remember, is the basis of your reputation. 
_ Another archeological curiosity is the Orcheston Grass : mentioned 
by several old writers, as Thomas Fuller, Norden, and others. 
Fuller, in 1662, calls it “ Knot-Grasse, growing at Master Tucker’s 
[i.e., Tooker’s] at Maddington : of the ninety species of grasses in 
England the most marvellous; he had been told 24 feet long: which 
May be true, because as there are giants among men, so there are 
giants among giants, which even exceed them in proportion.” Itis 
‘deseribed in Cox’s Magna Britannia (Wilts p. 165), as “ Gramen 
caninum supinum longissimum. Long trailing dog grass: found at 
Maddington, nine miles from Salisbury : will fat hogs, and is some 
it 25 foot long.” . 
This is the once famous Orcheston Grass: growing in the side 
