594 SHEEP SHORT-WOOLS 



stands well up, the horns thin, with a symmetrical curl, the 

 face rather long and thin, and the eye quick and lively. 

 The heart-girth is specially good, and the hind quarters 

 squarely set and well fleshed down. The ewes are excellent 

 nurses, and produce 130 to 180 per cent, of lambs ; they 

 are good folding sheep, and the mutton is well flavoured. 

 The breed had a class to itself for the first time at the 

 Royal Show at Battersea in 1862. 



Thomas Halford, writing (1898) on Kerry Hill sheep 

 (p. 563), says that the Dorset Horn breed, just before the 

 middle of last century, was " so like the pure Welsh sheep, 

 with the exception of size, that I thought they had been 

 imported from Wales. I did not know then that the counties 

 of Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall had been part of Wales, 

 and existed as West Wales in early times, and that the 

 aborigines had been pure Welsh. I now quite believe that 

 these Dorset sheep are the indigenous breed of the country, 

 and were left behind by the Welsh when they had to escape 

 from their foes across the Bristol Channel to South Wales." 



The general management of the breed in Dorset is as 

 follows : l " About one to one and a half ewes are kept to 

 the acre, according to the quality of the land and the amount 

 of water meadow and pasture attached to it. They require 

 plenty of room, and are generally allowed to roam the 

 pasture in the daytime, being brought on the arable land 

 at night. They take the ram fully two months earlier than 

 any other breed, and the general lambing time for the flock 

 ewes is November and up to the middle of December. The 

 off-going ewes are sold in lamb in the months of May, 

 September, and October, and most drop their lambs in Sep- 

 tember and October, the lambs being fattened for the London 

 market. The flock ewes generally lamb down on the grass ; 

 they are then put on roots, the lambs being allowed to run 

 forward. The lambs remain with the ewes till May, when 

 they are weaned, and go on to good grass till the fodder 

 crops rye, vetches, or trifolium are fit to feed. They 

 remain on vetches till about the end of June. As most of 

 the lambs are fattened, they receive as much cake and corn 



1 The following quotation is borrowed from the prefatory note in 

 vol. i." of the Dorset Horn Sheep Breeders' Association Flock Book, by 

 Thos. H. Ensor, Secretary, published in Dorchester in 1892. 



