SUSSEX GROUND OATS 37 



big crops, however, made it evident that manure was not 

 spared ; some winter oats and wheat were seen which 

 promised exceptional yields for the season, but the 

 spring oats were scarcely up to the standard expected 

 in this district, where wheat is counted on to yield 

 year after year more than five quarters to the acre and 

 oats much about the same. One distinguishing feature 

 of the crops grown on this land is their stiffness of 

 straw ; when the land has been brought into high 

 condition the crops stand better here than on the chalk 

 or greensand. Barley is but little grown, but is better 

 suited by the lighter shravey soil nearer the hills. 

 Moreover, there is an exceptionally good local sale of 

 oats to the poultry crammers who have established 

 themselves so largely in East Sussex. For " Sussex 

 ground oats," nowadays the standard food for fattening 

 poultry, heavy white oats are in demand, and they are 

 ground, husk and all, to a fine powder by specially 

 dressed millstones, having previously been mixed with 

 barley to facilitate the grinding, in roughly the propor- 

 tion of five of oats to one of barley. The red clover 

 was, perhaps, the least satisfactory of the crops, though 

 our host had for a generation saved seed of a variety 

 of his own which he regarded as best adapted to the 

 land. As is generally the case where red clover is 

 rather a doubtful crop, the soil was somewhat deficient 

 in lime ; dressings of lime, or, best of all, of fine chalk, 

 had always proved beneficial. 



We had now finally left behind the Hampshire sheep 

 and reached the Southdowns, the original parent of all 

 the Down breeds, a race evolved rather more than a 

 century ago by selection alone from the short-woolled 

 hill sheep which were native to the south of England. 

 This was not so much their proper country as were the 

 downs we could see rising to the northward ; the land 



