SUPPLEMENT. 763 



injury, the lambs when quite young being always allowed to run out in the fields with 

 theit mothers, and are healthier when so treated than when coddled in sheds. 



Grass, clover, and sainfoin are the principal food for these sheep from May till No- 

 vember; hay and turnips in winter, and it has been proved by Mr. Lawes's experiments 

 that Cotswold sheep made a greater and quicker return for their food than any of the 

 other breeds which he tried against them. 



Purchasers of Cottswold sheep for export should be careful not to buy very heavy, fat 

 rams got up for show, as these often suifer on a long journey and feel the change of food 

 and climate more than ram lambs or year- old sheep. For crossing with inferior sheep 

 lambs are preferable to older rams, as they are lighter, more active, and cheaper to pur- 

 chase, and are fully fit for breeding at eight months old. Purchasers in America buy- 

 ing through dealers are usually put off with the inferior or second-rate animals from a 

 good flock and pay for them as much or more as the best would cost if they were bought 

 direct from the breeder. The present value of pure Cotswold rams from a pedigree 

 flock is from 8 to 20 pounds, though much higher prices are paid by ram breeders. Bam 

 lambs can be had at about half the amount. The price of good young ewes is from £4 

 to £6, 'and their produce, if properly managed and fed, will pay for the mothers ata year 

 old. My flock usually consists of 500 ewes, which produce annually 600 to 650 lambs, 

 counted when weaned. The death rate from all causes varies from 2J to 7 per cent, of 

 the whole number kept, inclnding lambs, and the sale is held annually in September. 



H. J. ELWES. 



COLESBOKNE PAEK, 



Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, January 2, 1884. 



LONG-WOOL LIWCOLNS. 



NOTE BY MR. MACKIJUDEE. 



[Inclosure No. 2 in Consul-General Merritt's supplementary report.] 



My breed of sheep is Long- wool Lincolns and exhibited at the Smithfield show; 

 lambs, 9 months old (live weight), 14 stones, and ewes, 3 years old, 26 stones. My farm 

 is all arable loam, with limestone subsoil. Sheep in summer pastured on one year's 

 seeds, and in winter on turnips in field; not housed; weight of wool when clipped, from 

 10 pounds to 30 pounds washed. 



JOHN W. MACKINDER, 



Mere Sail, Lincoln. 



SOUTHDOWN SHEEP— THEIR HISTORY, BREEDING, AND MANAGE- 

 MENT. 



Lecture delivered by Mr. Senry Wood, of Merton, Tltetford, to the Institute of Agricultwre, 

 in the Lecture Theater of the South Kensington Museum, in March, 1884, Lord Wal- 

 singham presiding. 



[Inclosure No. 3 in Consul-General Merritt's report; from Bell's Weekly Messenger.] 



Mr. Wood said: The Southdown breed of sheep is believed to be indigenous to the 

 Downs of Sussex. It is said by the editor of The Farmer's Dictionary to have ex- 

 isted there before the Conquest. It is, no doubt, one of the purest and most unmixed 

 breeds in Britain. Little seems to have been known about Southdown sheep outside the 

 comparatively limited area in which they were kept until about two hundred years ago, 

 when (as Mr. Thomas EUman writes) several flocks on the Southdowns appear to have 

 been nearly annihilated by an outbreak of the small-pox disease, which was imported 

 into this country from Holland about that time. 



The sheep which the disease spared attracted rather more notice than had previously 

 been bestowed on the breed, but it was not until the latter part of the last century that 

 they came to be much esteemed. It was, in fact, Mr. Arthur Young, who, in one of those 

 useful essays published about 1794, which made his name famous in the agricultural 

 world, first called puplic attention to Southdown sheep, speaking favorably of their 

 hardy constitution aoi ?f fcbe fine cuality and flavor of the mutton'they produced. 



