766 CA.TTLE AND DAIRY FARMING. 



SoutMown sheep that ever lived ! Those were indeed meetings, the like of v^hich will 

 never be seen again. But to resume our narrative. 



In 1855 a two-year-old rain was let for the season for 170 guineas, and in 1860 a 

 yeaijling was sold, after being used at Babraham, for 250 guineas. These were, I believe, 

 the highest prices made by Babraham rams. As might be expected, Mr. Webb was a 

 most successful exhibitor of Southdown sheep at the Royal and other agricultural shows. 

 His first prize was won at the Essex show, held at Saffron Walden. He was subse- 

 quently awarded prizes for his sheep at exhibitions in Ireland, Scotland, and France. 

 He first exhibited at the Royal Agricultural Society's meeting at Cambridge in 1840, 

 where he received the first prize for ewes. He continued to exhibit with marked suc- 

 cess at most of the Royal shows down to and including the Canterbury meeting in 1860, 

 when he made a clean sweep of the prizes for rams. 



In 1861 the Babraham ewes and rams were sold by auction. They realized £10,926. 

 In the following year (1862) the shearling rams and ewes bom in 1861 were also pub- 

 licly disposed of, and brought £5,720. Thus the entire Babraham flock fetched the 

 large sum of £16,646. Surviving but a few months the dispersion of his lavorite flock, 

 the owner passed away in November of the same year. Such is the history of the Glynde 

 and Babraham Southdown flocks. 



Here I would venture to remark that while the owners of the flocks of which I have 

 just spoken were scrupulously careful to maintain the purity of the breed, each aimed 

 at a different type of animal. ' ' Small and good ' ' sheep were clearly Mr. Ellman's aim ; 

 Mr. Webb's, "large and good." Believing that large sheep were much the best, and 

 would be the sheep of the future, I need not say how well Mr. Webb succeeded in pro- 

 ducing animals of larger frame and greater weight than the Southdowns of Mr. Ell- 

 man's day, while at the same time retaining the true type and all the essential points of 

 a pure-bred Southdown sheep. 



It is, of course, a recognized fact (or ought to be by every careful breeder of South- 

 down sheep) that the first and greatest point is to maintain extreme purity; to allow no 

 cross to diminish the inestimable value of purity of blood. The direction in which im- 

 provement in Southdown sheep is desirable is uniformity of character, strength of con- 

 stitution, excellence of wool, development of symmetrical form, mutton- producing prop- 

 erties, smaUness of bone as compared with weight of meat, yet not such smallness as to 

 prevent the carrying of an increased amount of flesh. 



THE MBETON FLOCK. 



I may say that these are the points to which our attention has been always most espe- 

 cially directed in the flock of which I have now had the management for upwards of 

 thirty-six years. It is not for me to say how far we have been successful; indeed, I must 

 ask you to excuse me if, in illustration of my subject, I am in some degree compelled 

 to refer to the Merton flock. I shall do so very briefly, and only when it enables me 

 to trace more clearly the history of progress and improvement than could be done by 

 reference to other flocks with which I am less intiihately acquainted. 



Following the subject of increase in weight, I flndmyself obliged to mention the three 

 shearling champion prize Merton wethers of 1870, which averaged a little over 242 pounds 

 each, live weight. This I believe to have been the greatest weight recorded up to that 

 time. Some persons, indeed, at the exhibition thought that the great weight of those 

 sheep suggested that there had been some cross in the breeding. I need scarcely say 

 how utterly groundless was any such suggestion. The same imputation had been before 

 laid to the charge of Jonas Webb. When he succeeded in producing large Southdown 

 sheep of true type, and with as much quality as the small sheep of former times, he, 

 too, was suspected of having recourse to a cross vrith some other breed, but the suspicion 

 was as unfounded in his case as in ours. 



Since the Smithfield Show of 1870 other Merton pens of shearling wethers have been 

 exhibited of nearly the average weight of the champion sheep of that year, and no ques- 

 tion as to the purity of their breeding was ever so much as hinted at. 



At the late Smithfleld Exhibition Lord Walsingham's prize pen reached the unpre- 

 cedented average for Southdown wethers of 251 pounds. This showed an increased 

 weight of 9 pounds per sheep over the weight of the champion wethers of 1870, to which 

 I just now referred, and of 26 pounds as compared with the weight of the champion 

 wethers in 1882. 



I have no. intention of trying to make it appear that with the Merton flock more has 

 been accomplished than may be done by other flocks, or of keeping from you those partic- 

 • ulars of management to which is due that largeness of frame and excellence of mutton 

 without the infusion of any blood but that of the purest Southdown, to which the Mer- 

 ton sheep have attained. 



There are, of course, many excellent pure-bred flocks of Southdown sheep in this 

 country whose history, peculiarities, and merits I am obliged, through stress of time. 



