SOUTHDOWN SHEEP 41 



which on these extensive farms travel daily for long 

 distances from the down to the fold. They lamb in 

 March in fold-yards that are built up of wattles in the 

 corner of some turnip field with a straw stack adjacent, 

 and the losses both of ewes and lambs are apt to be 

 rather heavy, as they had been, for example, in the pre- 

 ceding wet winter. This may be attributed to the 

 ewes losing condition through the wet, until the daily 

 journey from down to fold and back brings them into 

 too low condition for lambing. After lambing, the 

 flock feeds steadily across the arable land, beginning 

 on the rye, then on the winter barley which grows a 

 little more slowly, then on the rape and the aftermath of 

 the seeds, followed by summer turnips and rape again. 

 Swedes are little seen in this district, rape being uni- 

 versally preferred for the sheep. One reason is that 

 the root land is generally cropped first with rye or 

 some other catch-crop, and by the time it is cleared 

 the season is often too far advanced to sow swedes 

 with success. Only on a few farms are the wethers 

 fattened ; as a rule the wether lambs and the draft 

 ewes are cleared out in September, the South Downs 

 being thus a sheep-raising rather than a mutton- 

 producing country. 



The land, though so similar to the Wiltshire chalk, 

 is generally farmed on the Norfolk four-course shift, 

 with oats in place of barley. Only in the north- 

 western counties of England Cheshire, Lancashire, 

 and Cumberland does the acreage under oats over- 

 top that given to barley in anything like the propor- 

 tion prevailing in Sussex, where there are seven acres 

 of oats for one of barley. We have already mentioned 

 the good local market for oats ; oat straw is also 

 considered the more valuable and is wanted for the 

 bullocks that are wintered. With the comparatively 



