430 
Fanning of Dorsetshire. 
advantages could be rendered most apparent. In the absence of 
any large works much may be effected by individual landowners 
and land occupiers by keeping the banks of streams in order 
and scouring out the beds, and where weirs can be improved the 
work of alteration becomes a public duty. In improving the 
weir at Bvircombe the Duke of Bedford is said to have expended 
nearly 500/. 
From Wimborne upward the Stour rises rapidly towards the 
hill country, but the Piddle is pretty level and runs sluggishly. 
The general run of the country is a little above high water. 
The difference between high and low water on tlie south coast is 
but 11 feet; on the opposite coast of Somersetshire, in the 
Bristol Channel, the difference between high and low water is 
45 feet at the least. 
Sheep. — A most prominent part of the farming of Dorset is its 
sheep husbandry, and it is that which elicits the greatest amount 
of commendation. Years ago the native sheep — the Dorset-horns 
— prevailed ; but they have been gradually driven to the western 
end of the county, where they are now chiefly located. Their 
places in the chalk district are now supplied either with the 
pure Sussex or Cambridge Down, or with the Sussex and Hamp- 
shire cross. Opinions vary very much as to the comparative 
advantages of these breeds, but lately a good deal more attention 
has been paid to purity, and Mr. James Harding of Waterson, 
with Ell man's pure Sussex, and Mr. Edward Pope of Toller, 
with Jonas Webb's Cambridge Downs, have done much good 
service in improving the down-sheep of the county. The former 
has an annual ram sale and letting, which' is attended by farmers 
from all parts of the county, and at which large prices are 
realised. The latter is understood* to be about reviving his 
annual ram lettings, which a change of flock compelled him to 
abandon, though his rams let as high as 50 guineas. The pure 
down, in comparison with the large and often coarse cross-bred, 
was emphatically declared by a breeder to be " gentlemen's mut- 
ton ;" and it is averred by those who favour the pure animal, 
that as much money is realised for 10 stone of their meat as for 
12 stone of cross-bred. When the cross-breds, or the Hamp- 
shire-downs, as they are called, get particularly ungainly or 
coarse, the flock is worked back again with a pure ram, and this 
practice is gaining ground. The Dorset-horns are still the main 
dependence of the dealers for the supply of early house-lamb to 
the London market, the ewes of this breed lambing from No- 
vember, and concluding the season soon after Christmas. Before 
the old Dorsets were crossed with the Somerset-horns, which is 
now almost universally the case for the purpose of obtaining 
greater v/eight and size, they were still earlier, and it was not 
