402 THE SHEEP OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



and converted to tillage. Mr. J. Homer, of Martinstown, 

 writing a dozen years since, said : " Very few real Southdown 

 flocks are left in this district, the improved Hampshire or Dorset 

 horns being so much better suited to its requirements." But it 

 is chiefly on those farms having water meadows along the 

 margins of the Fi'ome and the Piddle, and more particularly in 

 the neighbourhoods of Dorchester, Maiden-Newton, and Piddle- 

 town, that Dorset flocks prove of highest value in the chalk 

 country. Under these circumstances it is considered more 

 profitable to keep the forward draft ewes, and perform the 

 fattening business as regards both lambs and their dams on the 

 water meadows. Thus Mr. Paull affirmed : " Horn sheep are 

 well adapted to farms that have some good water meadows, as 

 they possess good quality and fatten readily, and their lambs 

 come to early maturity for market." And, again : " Horn sheep 

 are dropped about Christmas. As most of these hereabout are 

 fattened, they get cake as soon as they will eat, and all they can 

 be made to consume, the object being to get them off as soon as 

 possible, which in a fair season would be about April 1. Since 

 meat has been so dear many farmers fatten the off-going ewes 

 as well as the lambs, and they also are allowed whatever cake in 

 reason they will eat, the same object being desired as with the 

 lambs." 



Nor is this practice confined to the district named. Further 

 west many flockmasters have long since found it more remunera- 

 tive to do the fattening at home, rather than sell off their draft 

 ewes in lamb as heretofore. Distant localities having become 

 so intimately connected by the railway system, that Dorset and 

 Somerset can as readily supply the London market with lamb as 

 the home counties, which forty or fifty years ago afforded the 

 exclusive supply. Graziers residing in the neighbourhood of the 

 metropolis still go westward to obtain Dorset ewes forward in 

 lamb at high prices. But of late years they have had formidable 

 competitors in graziers from Hants, the Isle of Wight, and else- 

 where, who turn their attention very much to the production 

 of early lambs, and find Dorsets best adapted to serve the end in 

 view. 



The existing status and prospects of the breed in the county 

 of Dorset have been fully described by Mr. T. Ensor, than whom 



