AGRICULTURE 



perhaps mustard), for feed in the later summer and through the winter. 

 Every farm has its acreage of mangolds and swedes, and a large number of 

 cabbages are grown of the round and thousand head varieties. The extent of 

 meadow-land on the hill farm being as a rule very small, a considerable 

 acreage of broad clover is sown for hay, both for feeding the ewes during 

 lambing and also for horses, whilst a good portion of the ploughed land is 

 given up to what is locally known as gratton, i.e. rye-grass and trefoil, with 

 perhaps some white clover and alsike. 'On these grattons the ewes and lambs 

 are run when brought forward from the meadows, and in a favourable year 

 for growth, any part of the gratton which cannot be fed is mown for hay. 



The pasture-fields being of small extent, and being generally used for the 

 ewes and lambs when first drawn from the lambing yard, it will be seen that 

 there is but little chance for the horses on the farm to have a grass run in the 

 summer. The horses, therefore, are mainly dependent on the arable land, and 

 are fed on clover, hay, and oats, and in the early summer on trifolium and 

 tares. 



Formerly oxen were used for working purposes and were kept in large 

 open yards, and fed on oat-straw and hay, with the addition in winter of oats 

 or cake ; but now working oxen are practically things of the past and the 

 farms using them are very few, probably not more than half-a-dozen in the 

 whole range of the South Downs, if so many. The yards now, where dairy 

 cows are not kept, are filled with store stock, fed with oat-straw, hay, and 

 mangold, and are brought into better condition with oil-cake in the last few 

 weeks, so as to go down to the marsh or brook land at the end of April or 

 the beginning of May. 



The once familiar sight of a team of six bullocks drawing the old wheel 

 plough on the Downs, the subject of many an artist's sketch, has gone, and 

 no longer is there to be seen the eight oxen yoked together in pairs slowly 

 drawing the Sussex wagon into the market town laden with wheat or other 

 farm produce. 



On the purely flock farms a flock of from 300 to 1,000 ewes will be 

 kept. The ewes lamb down in February or March, in East Sussex generally 

 not until the middle of March, yards being formed for them with gorse cut 

 from the Downs, of which there is a plentiful supply, or in the open yards 

 attached to the buildings on the farm ; where these are available, barns and 

 sheds are brought into use, and where these are not sufficient thatched shelters 

 are made. The lambs are tailed, &c., in about three weeks, and a few days 

 later the ewes and lambs are drawn into a meadow to ensure, if possible, a 

 plentiful supply of milk for the lambs. From here they are drawn on the 

 grattons, and then ewes and lambs go into a fold, and begin also to feed off the 

 first of the spring crops provided for them. From this time on till near lambing 

 again, the ewes ' go to fold.' In June the lambs are taken away from the 

 ewes and go to fold on their own account. In June also comes the washing 

 of the ewes and ewe tegs, followed by shearing. The first fairs, St. John's in 

 the east and Findon in West Sussex, take place early in July, and here are sent 

 chiefly the cull lambs of both sexes ; these fairs are followed by Bat and Ball 

 Fair at Chiddingly at the end of July, chiefly a lamb fair, but now, owing to 

 its position some four miles from a station, presenting very modest propor- 

 tions. Lindfield Fair early in August, near Hayward's Heath, takes many of 

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