52 SHEEP : BREEDS AND MANAGEMENT. 



the auspices of the late Emperor. Napoleon III. paused to 

 admire Mr. Webb's Southdowns, and inquired who the sheep 

 belonged to. " Yours, your Majesty," promptly replied Mr. 

 Jonas Webb, " if your Majesty will accept of them." The 

 gift was accepted ; and a splendid present of solid silver 

 plate came shortly afterwards from the Tuileries to Babraham. 



The Southdown has been honoured by the patronage of a 

 number of Royal personages and nobility, headed by H.R.H. 

 the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Richmond and Gordon, the 

 Duke of Hamilton, Lord Walsingham, the Marquis of Bristol, 

 Viscount Hampden, Sir William Throckmorton, Colonel Sir 

 Nigel Kingscote, the late Mr. Henry Brassey, Mr. Colman, 

 M.P., and many other well-known members of Parliament 

 and county men. 



The Southdown has ever been a favourite with the rich, 

 but it also deserves the patronage of rent-paying farmers. 

 Still, the fact remains that weight of carcase and weight of 

 wool, rather than the highest quality, have been for long more 

 profitable and more rent-paying investments for the ordinary 

 farmer, and hence the Southdown is less often seen in farmers' 

 hands than in those of landlords, but there are large districts 

 where the Southdown is the breed of the country. 



For crossing purposes the Southdown has been particularly 

 useful, and his blood exists in every improved Down flock. 

 It is to the admixture of Southdown blood, made long years 

 ago, that the improved Hampshire Down owes his position. 

 Through the Hampshire Down the Oxfords get the same 

 qualities, and the Shropshires were no doubt crossed with the 

 Southdowns, as we shall see later. As the Leicester lies at 

 the root of the improved long-woolled races, so the Southdown 

 is the original, and was the first improved, and first short- 

 woolled sheep used in the renovation of the dark-faced Down 

 breeds. They have found their way into every county, and 

 they have been, and are, exported yearly to keep up and 

 improve the flocks of foreign countries. 



