124 



THE HAMPSHIRE 



These crops, secured at considerable expense, had to be fed to sheep 

 capable of handling large quantities of rank forage and of turning 

 ofE big wether lambs rather than yearling or two-year-old wethers 

 (Fig. 78). 



Work of Hximphrey. — By 1R35 Hampshire sheep, according to 

 Wrightson, had taken their general form, but there yet remained 

 the task of reducing them to a uniform type with the power of 

 transmitting their characters regularly to their ofEspring. In this 

 work Mr. Humphrey, of Oak Ash, near Wantage, in Berkshire, led 

 all others to the extent that he is generally credited with giving 

 the breed its present character and position. He attained his suc- 

 cess by carefully selecting those ewes which in his judgment were 

 the best of the old Hampshire Downs, then known as West Country 



Fig. 78.' 



-Hampshire ewes in England cleaning up a growth of forage, which has been 

 partially consumed by their lambs. 



Downs, and mating them with Southdown rams from the flock of 

 Jonas Webb. His method of procedure is well brought out in his 

 historic communication to W. C. Spooner in 1859. 



"About twenty-five years since, in forming my flock, I pur- 

 chased the best Hampshire or West Country Down ewes I could 

 meet with. Some of them I obtained from the late Mr. G. Budd, 

 Mr. William Pain, Mr. Digwee, and other eminent breeders, giving 

 40 shillings when ordinary ewes were making 33 shillings, and 

 using the best rams I could get of the same kind until the Oxford 

 Show of the Royal Agricultural Society. On examining the dif- 

 ferent breeds exhibited there, I found the Cotswolds were beautiful 

 in form and of great size, and, on malting inquiries as to how they 

 were brought to such perfection, I was informed that a Leicester 



