i08 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doe. 



for coarser fabrics, yielding in the hands of good farmers 

 a fleece of not over three and one-half or four pounds. 

 They were slow in arriving at maturity, compared with 

 the present improved English breeds, and yielded when 

 full grown only from twelve to fourteen pounds per quarter 

 of a middling quality of mutton which, however, was in but 

 slight demand; they were usually long-legged, light in the 

 fore quarter, and narrow on the back and hind quarter. 

 They were hardy, easy keepers and good breeders, often 

 rearing, almost entirely destitute of care and shelter, one 

 hundred per cent of lambs, and in small flocks with more 

 care a still larger proportion ; these were dropped in March 

 and April. Restless in their disposition, their impatience of 

 restraint almost equalled that of the untamed sheep of the 

 Rocky Mountains; and in many parts of the country it was 

 common to see flocks of from twenty to fifty roaming with 

 little regard to enclosures over the possessions of the owner 

 and his neighbors, leaving a portion of their wool on every 

 thorn and bush. 



I do not purpose to give a history of the different breeds 

 of sheep cultivated in England, but briefly to notice those 

 that have received the preference of our own farmers. 



/South Downs. 



Seventy-five years ago there were in the United Kingdom 

 of Great Britain twenty different so-called breeds of sheep, 

 each peculiar to the county or circumscribed district in which 

 they were bred, and many of them probably not breeds in 

 the strict sense of that term, as capable of reproducing their 

 own type under all circumstances. Many of these have been 

 absorbed, and arc disappearing by cross-breeding with the 

 more profitable I needs ; of these, the one having undoubtedly 

 the most influence has been the South Down, which has 

 stamped its characteristics on the popular families of the 

 Oxford, the Hampshire and the Shropshire Downs, now, 

 with the exception of some Merinos, almost exclusively bred 

 in this State. 



The chalk hills called downs, running through the county 

 of Sussex and into Hampshire on the south coast of England, 

 are the home of the South Downs, now so famous all over 



