DORSET HORNED SHEEP. 397 



in his book on sheep, allude prominently to this subject, and 

 show that the Downs supplanted their rivals because better fitted 

 to crop the close herbage of the chalk hills, and being smaller, 

 many more could be supported on a given acreage. The wool 

 question tended most to prolong the struggle, for the Dorsets 

 would always shear from lib. to l|lb. more per head than their 

 opponents. But the fleece of the Southdown in those days, 

 although light, was held in high estimation, and the advanced 

 rate per tod it then commanded in the market helped eventually 

 to turn the balance. The Dorsets were ultimately expelled from 

 the chalk region, and driven back to better land in the western 

 part of the county. Contention between the breeds has, however, 

 in isolated cases, been waged more or less ever since ; thus Mr. 

 Kuegg, in his prize essay, published in the Eoyal Agricultural 

 Society's Journal for 1855, observes : " Mr. Pope, having a flock 

 of pure Downs at Toller, sent some of the best of them to his 

 rich land at Mapperton, a horn country, and found out that the 

 poorest Downs on the thin land at Toller did better than the 

 best Downs on the rich land at Mapperton." The horns there- 

 fore seem now to be in possession of their own country, from 

 whence the Downs are not likely to eject them. In addition to 

 early lambing, they twin oftener than the Downs. As lambs 

 they fatten well, but as hogs they do not progress with the 

 Downs. In the second year they regain their position. Mr. 

 Damar, of Winfrith, put up 300 horn and 300 Down lambs, and, 

 after eighteen months' run, found that the horns had paid 7s. a 

 head more than the Downs, reckoning them at 2s. less cost, and 

 at 5s. a head more in sale. 



But more has perhaps been done for the perfection of the 

 breed during the past thirty or forty years than during any 

 previous period of progress, and but for a third set of favourites 

 having entered on the field, they might again stand a fair chance 

 of regaining the territory from which they were expelled, but 

 which is now occupied by the improved Hampshires. Mr. 

 Thomas Danger found Dorsets wanting in two essential points ; 

 they were less disposed to fatten than some others, and in form 

 were rather imperfect, consequently he made it his special study 

 to eifect a great improvement in these two points, and succeeded 

 in bringing the Hunstile flock to a high standard of merit. For 



