HAMPSHIRE DOWN SHEEP. 69 



sheds they are given turnips and the corn is increased to a 

 pint each. They are marketed generally at Christmas. They 

 usually dress from 75 to 100 lbs. This year 75 that were sold 

 to Bryan Lawrence of Ifew York averaged in weight 87 J lbs. 



" With regard to the wool-producing qualities of the South 

 Down, the one year that I kept an accurate account, the ewe 

 flock, including among the number sheep eight and nine years 

 old, all having suckled lambs, gave 6 lbs. sf oz. ; the yearling 

 ewes 8 lbs. 12 oz.; the yearling rams from 8 to 12 lbs. This 

 was unwashied wool, though as you are' aware, their wool is 

 not of a greasy chal-acter, and should not be shrunk at the 

 most over one-fourth, by the buyer. 



" You may remember to have seen some notices of the sales 

 of Jonas Webb's South Downs. The first sale, in 1861, 

 included all the flock except lambs, and numbered 200 rams 

 and 770 ewes. They brought £10,926. The balance were sold 

 in 1862, and numbered 148 rams and 289 ewes. Amount of 

 sale, £5,720. Total two years sales, more than $80^000."* 



Mr. Thorne further writes me : — "Breeding ewes requirie 

 exercise; I have always considered it more to the advantage 

 of meadows than of sheep that they should be yarded." Sis 

 sheep have been extremely healthy. The only prevalent 

 disease among them has been puerperal or parturient fever, at 

 larnbing. Prior to 1859 he had but one or two cases a year, 

 but that year twenty, and four ewes died. This was his worst 

 year, and under a new mode of treatment the disease is 

 apparently entirely disappearing from his flock. It never, 

 however, was confined to his flock or family of sheep, he 

 informs me, but has been a prevalent disease among sheep of 

 all kinds in the neighborhood, though often called by other 

 names. 



The ram, a cut of which is given on page 5&, is " Arch- 

 bishop," already mentioned, bred by Mr. Jonas Webb, and 

 owned by Mr. Thome. The ewes, cuts of which are given on 

 page 57, are a pair of two-year olds bred by Mr. Thorne from 

 his imported stock. 



Hampshire Downs. — :Professor Wilson thus describes the 

 Hampshire Downs : 



" This rapidly increasing breed of sheep appears to be the 

 result of a recent cross between the pure South Down and the 

 old horned white-face sheep of Hampshire and Wiltshire, by 

 which the hard-working, though fine quality, of jthe former is 



* This letter is dated Thorndale, Washington Hollow, N. Y., April 3, 1863. 



