156 BRITISH SHEEP AND SHEPHERDING. 



food at the time it is required, and cleaning is deferred. As a 

 matter of fact, a great many successful farms on these thin soils 

 are by no means kept absolutely clean, but the rubbish is kept 

 down to such a point that the crop's prosperity is not interfered 

 with. The custom of leaving sainfoin down several years, and 

 of keeping seeds down more than a year in many instances, tends 

 to keep the land rubbishy, and as the roots go down but a little 

 way, this method of only partly cleaning is not so unsound as those 

 who farm clean on stronger soils might think at first sight. The 

 method of farming is one which produces the most food, and the 

 frequent breaking up of the land, with a little cleaning each time, 

 prevents the smothering that appears to be probable. The cropping 

 is mainly a catch cropping one, and it is only in this way that sheep 

 farming can be done as intensively as it is. Moreover, the soils 

 have little power of retaining goodness, consequently a quick succes- 

 sion of restorative and conserving crops is necessary idle land 

 has no place in such circumstances. 



Ellmarfs System Adapted. A general idea of the nature of 

 the farming is necessary for the management of the flock to be 

 understood. The system of cropping on the Wilts, Hants and 

 neighbouring downs, is in reality an adaptation of the catch-crop 

 system inaugurated by EUman, of Glynde, in Sussex, when he 

 undertook the improvement of the Southdown sheep some 150 years 

 ago. It was useless to improve the sheep unless suitable food 

 were supplied, and his genius saw that a catch -crop system, such 

 as he evolved, was the only way to procure suitable food at all 

 seasons, and allow the ewes to drop their lambs early in the year. 

 Very little alteration has been made since his earlier days ; the 

 introduction of trifolium and mangels as farm crops being perhaps 

 the most important, and allowing the fullest scope. 



Apart from the arable cropping the quantity of grazing available 

 has considerable aignifina.Ti.fie. As a rule, the Down farms are 

 associated with little ordinary dry lowland pasturage, but those 

 farms which have a frontage to those rivers where the water-meadow 

 system has been developed, are preferentially placed. The extent 

 of Down pasturage, of course, is important. On some farms there 

 is comparatively little, whilst on others the range is extensive. 

 As a rule, the farms with water-meadow frontages are associated 

 with the more prominent flocks, as they provide suitable food 

 for lambs in early spring with definite certainty ; and it is on 

 these farms that the ewes can be brought to lamb very early 

 at the beginning of January. Farms which have belts of light 

 to medium arable land lying between the water-meadows and the 

 chalk arable are also favourably placed, as on these mangels can 

 be grown, and mangels play a big part in the food supply from 

 March to July. 



