THE SOUTHDOWN 



547 



high-class wethers for showing in nonbreeding classes for the 

 butcher. The Southdown blood has proved very prepotent. At 

 the 191 8 International Live-Stock Exposition a very beautiful 

 carload of grade Southdown wether lambs, averaging 88 pounds, 

 were awarded grand championship honors and sold for the high 

 price of $40.50 per hundred. In the South Dakota feeding 

 experiment 53 lambs out of Western native ewes sired by a 

 Southdown ram made an average daily gain of a quarter of a 

 pound and dressed out 53.1 per cent carcass to offal. 



Fig. 249. Front view of the five grade Southdown wether lambs shown in Fig. 24 



The breeding qualities of the Southdown are about average. In 

 1856 Professor Wilson of Scotland wrote: "The ewes are very 

 prolific and are excellent mothers, commonly rearing 120 or 130 

 lambs to the 100 ewes." In recent years, as compared with the 

 Shropshire, the breed cannot be regarded as superior in fecundity. 

 At the government flock in Vermont, according to Shaw and 

 Heller, a lamb crop of 125 per cent has been secured. This fig- 

 ure is no doubt a conservative estimate. The ewes make good 

 mothers and have a fair flow of milk. 



The adaptability of the Southdown to a variety of conditions 



is very fair. On rolling land, and even on hilly land producing 



plenty of pasture, they do well. On the slightly rolling, well-drained 



lands of the Central West they seem to thrive, while in the South 



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