MODERN SHEEP: BREEDS AND MANAGEMENT. 61 



casioned by the escapade shortly after leaving her young friend and 

 protector almost broken-hearted.' 



The American Southdown Breeders' Association, of which Mr. 

 John L. Springer is the capable secretary, is doing a good work 

 for the breed in this country. 



THE OXFORD. 



The Oxford is a breed of comparatively recent origin. It is 

 the result of crossing the Cotswold ram on the Hampshire ewe or 

 vice versa. The idea that a distinct and valuable breed could be 

 evolved from the cross between the improved Cotswold and the 

 Down breeds first originated with the late Mr. John Talmadge 

 Twynam, of Winchester, who in 1829 took the initial step toward 

 forming the Down-Cotswoid breed by mating some of his Hamp- 

 shire Down ewes with an improved Cotswold ram, his object being 

 to form a breeding flock in which the best characteristics of the 

 long-wool and short-wool breeds would be combined. Mr. 

 Twynam died in 1898, in his 98th year. He is said to have had a 

 very retentive memory and related the doings of his youth and 

 the stirring events of those times with a freshness and interest 

 as if they had happened but yesterday. Mr. Twynam's father 

 farmed over 10,000 acres of land on which there were kept a flock 

 of 4,000 ewes. 



Former Secretary, R. Henry Rew, of the English Oxford Down 

 Sheep Breeders' Association, wrote of this well-known breed of 

 sheep : "It was just after the accession of William IV., and not 

 long prior, therefore, to the foundation of the Royal Agricultural 

 Society, that the idea occurred almost simultaneously to two or 

 three distinguished sheep-breeders of that day to attempt to unite 

 in one breed the divers qualities of the longwool and the shortwool 

 . . . . . Mr. Samuel Druce of Eynsham, Mr. John Gillett 

 of Brize Norton, Mr. William Gillett of Southleigh, and Mr. 

 Nathaniel Blake of Stanton Har court, living within half a dozen 

 miles of each other, were the chief founders of the breed.^ They 

 were joined in their enterprise by Mr. John Hitchman of Little 

 Milton and Mr. J. T. Twynam of Whitchurch Farm, Hampshire. 

 The latter did much to press the claims of the new breed upon 

 public attention. In the Farmers' Magazine for 1840, Mr. 

 Twynam stated that his breed of sheep, 'originating in the improved 

 Cotswold ram and the fine-bred Hampshire -Down ewe,' had been 

 established for nine years, which would place his earliest efforts in 

 1830 or 1831." 



In a letter to the Mark Lane Express in 1862 Mr. Twynam 

 said: "I may claim, without fear of dispute, having first origi- 

 nated the idea that a distinct, permanent, and valuable breed of 

 sheep might be founded on it (the Cotswold and Down cross) ; 



