58 MODERN SHEEP : BREEDS AND MANAGEMENT. 



and free from wool; the belly full of wool; the wool close and 

 hard to the feet, curdled to the eye, and free from projecting or 

 strong fibres. Those flocks not bred with particular care and at- 

 tention are apt to be coarse-wooled in the back, but some are fine 

 all over; weight, fat, from 12 to 15 pounds a quarter." 



Professor Low, writing about 1842, gives us the following in- 

 teresting sketch of the Southdowns home: "The Southdowns of 

 Sussex consists of a range of low chalky hills, are five or six miles in 

 breadth, stretching along the coast upwards of sixty miles, and pass- 

 ing into the chalky lands of Hants on the west. In contact with 

 this range of hills is a tract of low cultivated ground, which is 

 usually connected with the Down -farms, although many of the latter 

 have no vale or flat land attached. The herbage of these hills is 

 short, but well adapted for the keeping of sheep, of which vast num- 

 bers have, in every known period, occupied the pastures. Whilst 

 the dryness of the air, the moderate elevation of the land, and con- 

 sequent mildness of the climate, are all eminently favorable to the 

 rearing of a race of Downs or mountain sheep, the contact of the 

 cultivated country affords the means of supplying artificial food. 

 It is this combination of favorable circumstances which has ren- 

 dered these calcareous hills capable of supporting a greater num- 

 ber of sheep than, perhaps, any tract of similar fertility in the 

 country, and has afforded the means to the breeders of applying 

 the resources of artificial feeding to their improvement. The 

 original breed of the Sussex Downs was not superior to that of 

 many other districts of the chalk formation; but the means of 

 supplying the animal with artificial food, which the geographical 

 situations of this long and narrow chain of hills in contact with the 

 richer country afforded, aided the breeder in applying to the im- 

 provement of the race a system of breeding and feeding which has 

 rendered the Southdown breed the most esteemed in the countries 

 suited to it, of all the short-wooled sheep of England/' 



The following particulars of prices obtained for Southdown 

 sheep by Mr. Ellman of Glynde, Sussex, are copied from Vol. I 

 of the Southdown Sheep Club : "The first Southdown ram sold for 

 ten guineas was in the year 1787 to Lord Waldegrave, in Essex, by 

 Mr. Ellman, when he sold two to his lordship for 21. In 1794 the 

 Earl of Egremont gave Mr. Ellman two guineas each for 50 ewes. 

 The first ram Mr. Ellman ever sold for 50 guineas was in 1796, to 

 Mr. Goodenough in Dorsetshire. From this time, for many years, 

 there was a regular demand for all the rams Mr. Ellman could sup- 

 ply at prices varying from twenty to a hundred guineas for the 

 season. In 1802 and 1803 Francis, Duke of Bedford, gave him 

 three hundred guineas for the use of a ram for the two seasons, 

 which was the highest price Mr. Ellman ever let a ram for. In 

 1800 Mr. Ellman sold 200 ewes to the same nobleman for five hun- 

 dred guineas. The price at which Mr. Ellman sold his draft ewes 



