MODERN SHEEP I BREEDS AND MANAGEMENT. 43 



first and the last, by marking the lambs of each tribe as they fell, 

 then coupling them together at the third and fourth generation, 

 my present flock was made/ 



"Mr. Humphrey found his first difficulty in loss of size, and 

 to obviate it drafted out his finest and smallest bred ewes, replac- 

 ing them with the largest Hampshire Down ewes he could find 

 that suited his fancy, and on these he continued to use the most 

 masculine and robust of his own bred rams. This policy entirely 

 succeeded, and, as he himself said, 'beyond what I could have ex- 

 pected/ 



"Oak Ash is eight miles from Wantage, Berks, and was named 

 from an ash tree which grew up within the hollow trunk of an 

 tncient oak, but which was removed and replanted where it now 

 stands. It is an estate of 600 acres, all under tillage, and without 

 water meadow. It is nearly all good, and rather strong land, and 

 has been known to grow one load of marketable wheat per acre 

 over the whole wheat area. The house is well placed and commo- 

 dious. Mr. Humphrey, at the time under our notice, was the 

 proprietor of this and other lands, and remained there until his 

 death. He unquestionably possessed in a high degree the peculiar 

 genius required in a first improver of stock. It is a faculty which 

 must be implanted by nature, and comes to few. He is described 

 as a fine-looking man, a capita,! public speaker, a keen man with 

 the gun, and an excellent shot. He was a kind master and a good 

 neighbor. 



"The following is a statement made to me recently by Abra- 

 ham Hopkins, who lived as shepherd with Mr. Humphrey from 

 1842 to 1868, and, therefore, from the date at which the Babraham 

 Southdowns were first used down to Mr. Humphrey's death: 

 'When Mr. Webb's sheep came, master would stand and look at 

 him for two or three hours ; or when a good lamb fell from a fa- 

 vorite ewe, he would stand and look at it, and move it about, for 

 an hour or more/ 



"He took first prize with a West Country Down ewe at Ox- 

 ford in 1840. It was not, however, till 1842 that he hired his 

 first sheep from Mr. Jonas Webb, and he had in all three sheep 

 from Babraham, for which he paid 60 gs. each for the hire. He 

 had them at intervals of about two years, and these were all the 

 rams he ever bought or hired from Mr. Jonas Webb or anyone 

 else one of them was named Thickhorn but, with these excep- 

 tions, he used his own rams all the time. The ewes were drawn 

 to these rams with the greatest possible care. 



"He only once bought ewes. They were bought in a lot of 

 100, and of these Mr. Humphrey had twenty-five, ~Er. Eawlence 

 twenty-five, and a neighbor fifty. The ewes were picked one by 

 one, and Mr. Humphrey had the first pick. The ewes were just 

 outside the house, and (Abraham Hopkins says) he had noticed the 



