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Jonas Webb was born at Great Thurlow, Suffolk, on 

 the 10th of November, 1796. His father, who died at 

 the age of ninety-three, was a veteran in agriculture, 

 and had attained to honorable distinction by his efforts 

 to improve the old Norfolk breed of sheep, and by his 

 experiments with other races. The results obtained 

 from these operations convinced his son that more 

 mutton and better wool could be made per acre from 

 the Southdown than from any other breed, upon nine- 

 tenths of the arable land of England, where the sheep 

 are regularly folded, especially where the land is poor. 

 In 1822, he commenced that agricultural career which 

 won for him such a world- wide celebrity, by taking the 

 Babraham Farm, occupying about 1000 acres, some 

 twelve miles south of Cambridge. In a very interesting 

 letter, addressed to the Farmers' Magazine, about twenty 

 years since, he gives a valuable resume of his experience 

 up to that time. In this he states several facts that 

 may be especially useful to American agriculturists. 

 Having decided in his own mind that the Southdowns 

 were preferable to every other breed, for the two 

 properties mentioned, he went into Sussex, their native 

 county, and purchased the best rams and ewes that 

 could be obtained of the principal breeders, regardless 

 of expense, and never made a cross from any other 

 breed afterwards. Nor was this all ; he never intro- 



