ACRlfiUIiTURAL r.iUSEUM 121- 



lan.l (free of any local consideration) worth one? guinea 

 an.i a half /jer acre, with the help of some turnips and 

 p^ase-haulmin the dead winter months ; and that with 

 judgment in the manner of stoeking, we shall neither 

 push them beyond their growth, nor make them meat 

 for the butcher, but shall maintain them in healthy store- 

 state. On the same land, and under the same circum- 

 stances, we can carry four South downs, or their* cross, 

 and somewhat more per acre. If our Ry eland ewes will 

 fatten to twelve pounds per quarter, our South-downs, 

 will reach nearly eighteen ; the rate of stock per acre 

 wji!, therefore, be found the same in proportion to the 

 size §. The quantity of good mutton and wool j^er acre, 

 must be the only test of good or bad management : it is 

 on the increased stock of South downs, which his estate 

 in IVortolk now carries, that ISIr, Coke prides himself* 

 A noted husbandnian from Nottinghamshire is said to 

 have declared, that he never before saw an estate so 

 stocked. 



The Southdown stock, which is now reared on a farm 

 of the Duke of Bedford, called iNlauiden, in Bedfordshire, 

 the nature of the land considered, will be found to exceed 

 that which belongs to myself A very few year^ago, 

 great part of this estate was wild, unproductive heath, va- 

 lued at 2s. 6c?. pe?" acre. A JSoffolk farmer was invited 

 to take it, but declined any engagement, at any price. 

 Four hundred acres of it have been broken up. Its situ- 

 ation was such as to preclude all extra manure, there* 

 fore the estate is making itself by the sheepfold ; it now 

 carries 400 breeding Southdown ewes, the stock a- 

 mounts to 1200, and the fat sheep finished on the same : 

 there remain about 150 acres only of heath to break up, 

 at which time the estate will carry 1600 sheep. The 

 South down stock is large in size, and of the first-rate 

 quality ; the land cannot now be valued at more than ten 

 shillings, and the stock three, per acre, winter and sum- 



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