ROMNEY MARSH SHEEP 49 



grazed chiefly by fattening bullocks, some of them 

 belonging to the native Sussex breed and coming in 

 small bunches from the hill country roundabout ; but 

 as this local supply is insufficient, Irish-bred Short- 

 horns and Devons from the west are even more 

 common. The very similar Romney Marsh is stocked 

 almost entirely with sheep, which are bred there 

 and then travel to the uplands for the winter, when 

 the ewes alone remain in the marsh. As soon as 

 the grass begins to grow, the lambs return and either 

 join the flock or are fattened out on the abundant 

 pastures of early summer. In winter the losses are 

 heavy among the lambs, because they are stocked 

 thickly on the poor hill pastures and rarely given 

 hay even during the severest weather. But, wasteful 

 as the system seems, the graziers justify it on the 

 ground that the weakly ones, who would have proved 

 bad doers, are weeded out and those which return 

 thrive all the better for not having been coddled. In 

 the main the practice survives because it is cheap : 

 like much other bad farming, it pays by cutting 

 down the expenditure to a minimum and making profit 

 of all that can be skimmed off the land. Incidentally, 

 the system, acting for many generations, has raised 

 up one of the hardiest of sheep breeds the Kent or 

 Romney Marsh a big, white-faced, Roman-nosed 

 sheep, with a heavy fleece and a faculty of standing 

 all kinds of weather and foraging for itself, which 

 has made it of late years a favourite for crossing 

 purposes both in Argentina and in New Zealand. 



Beyond the Marsh the land rises into the High 

 Weald where, as we approached the Kentish border, 

 a new feature appeared in the landscape the round, 

 conical-topped oast houses or kilns for drying hops. 

 The earlier ones we saw were only evidences of a 



