7O MODERN SHEEP I BREEDS AND MANAGEMENT. 



and other standpoints. It is well worthy of a trial in this country. 

 The champions of the Dorset Down make claim that their breed 

 has merits equal if not superior to those of the Hampshire 

 Down. The origin of the Dorset Down is about the same as that 

 of m the Hampshire Down. It originated from a cross between the 

 old Wiltshire and Hampshire Down sheep and the Southdown. 

 Mr. Henry Duke, an enthusiastic breeder of the Dorset Down, says 

 he thinks he can claim for the Dorset Down that it is more 

 adaptive than any other class of sheep that he knows, as they can- 

 not very well be put out of place, for they are as equally at home 

 on the chalk downs and the more fertile lands in Sussex as be- 

 tween the hurdles, but the Hampshire Down he found was more 

 at home between the hurdles than anywhere else. Speaking of 

 fecundity, the same gentleman remarked that his experience was 

 that taking an average of five years they could get about a lamb 

 a ewe from an ordinary flock of different ages, although the draft 

 ewes would produce a larger proportion. Sometimes they get ten 

 or fifteen per cent, less and sometimes ten or fifteen per cent, more, 

 but a lamb to a ewe is the average. He also remarked that the 

 Dorset Downs were far the best rent paying class of sheep, for the 

 reason that they could be kept thicker or in larger numbers in one 

 flock. 



The Dorset Down is spoken of by one authority as a breed 

 combining size with nice quality of flesh, bone and wool, together 

 with a face of nutty-brown to brownish-black color, suggestive, in 

 a general sense, of being considered as intermediate between the 

 Southdown and Hampshire Down, but distinct from either. Tak- 

 ing up its origin, it may be traced back to some eighty years ago, 

 when Mr. Thomas H. Saunders set to work to formulate a better 

 class of sheep than generally existed in the county of Dorset. He 

 selected a large type of Southdown ewes, which was reasonably 

 common in Dorsetshire at that time, and descended from the flock 

 of Mr. Ellman of Sussex. With this class of ewe Mr. Saunders 

 started by crossing with rams of larger size and somewhat Hamp- 

 shire in character, which he picked up here and there when he could 

 find those that met his requirements, and by judicious crossing 

 and keeping of a careful pedigree he created what ultimately be- 

 came the "Watercombe Breed," which were known, however, in 

 certain districts as the "Improved Hampshires" and in others as 

 the "West-country Downs." The "West-country Downs," however, 

 were a similar cross to Mr. Saunders' type, but raised in a reversed 

 manner by Mr. William Humfrey of Chaddleworth, near New- 

 bury, who about the same period as Mr. Saunders, started his 

 work, selecting some of the large types of coarse Hampshire, Berk- 

 shire and Wiltshire ewes and crossed them with pure Southdown 

 rams, direct from Mr. Jonas Webb's flock. After twenty-five years 

 and considerable in-and-in breeding, with pedigree and care, he 



