THE CULTIVATOR. 
128 
nal breed was horned. It has been shown that the primitive breed of 
sheep was probably horned. The ram that was sacrificed by Abra¬ 
ham, instead of his son, was entangled in a thicket by his horns; and 
it is not unusual to find among the male South-Down lambs some with 
small horns. 
The dusky or sometimes black hue of the head and legs of the South- 
Downs not only proves the original colour of the sheep, and perhaps 
of all sheep, but the later period at which it was seriously attempted 
to get rid of this dingy hue. In almost every flock, notwithstanding 
the great care which is now taken to prevent it, parti-coloured lambs 
will be dropped some with large black spots, some half blaek, and 
some entirely black. A writer in the “Annals of Agriculture,” states 
that “ he has frequently had twelve or fourteen perfectly black lambs, 
although he never kept a black ram or ewe.” From this he draws the 
conclusion, that their original colour was black; that art alone produc¬ 
ed the white wool;. and that, if the best of the South-Downs were left 
in a wild state, they would in a few years become black again. 
There are no sheep more healthy lhan the South-Downs. They sel¬ 
dom suffer from the hydatid on the brain, nor, on the majority of the 
farms, are they so much exposed to the rot as in many other districts. 
Their general health may be much connected with this frequent change 
of food, and their periodical journeys to and from the fold. 
The rams are usually put with the ewes about the middle of Octo¬ 
ber, and remain with them three or four weeks. The careful breeder, 
where his farm will admit of it, puts only one ram to a certain number 
of ewes in each enclosure; about forty to a lamb ram, and eighty to 
one fully grown. He thus knows the progeny of each ram, a circum¬ 
stance of no little importance with regard to the improvement of the 
breed. At the end of the third or fourth week, the whole fleck is 
again put together; two or three rams being left with them in case any 
of the ewes should still remain at heat. 
It is believed that the treatment of the ewes at this time has consi¬ 
derable connexion with the number of lambs which they will produce. 
If they are well kept, a considerable proportion of them will have 
twins. It is possible that the stimulus of plentiful and nutritious food 
may have some influence on the number of lambs; but if the farming 
arrangements of the sheep-breeder should render it desirable for his 
stock thus rapidly to multiply, he would be most likely to accomplish 
his object by breeding from rams and ewes that were twins. No fact 
can be more clearly established than an hereditary tendency to fecun¬ 
dity. 
The average dead weight of the South-Down wether varies from 
eight to eleven stones ;, but Mr. Grantham exhibited a pen of three 
sheep in the last show of the Smitlifield Club, (1835,) one of them 
weighing twenty stones three pounds; a second, twenty stones six 
pounds, and the third twenty-one stones. 
The average weight of the fleece of a South-Down hill sheep was 
stated by Mr. Luccock, in 1800, to be two pounds; it has now increased 
to three pounds. The fleece of the lowland sheep that used to be three 
pounds, is now three and a half or four pounds. This is the natural 
consequence of the different mode of feeding, and the larger size ©f 
the animal. The length of the staple in the hill sheep rarely exceed¬ 
ed two inches in length, and was oftener not more than one and a half 
inches; it is now more than two inches, and in some of the lowland 
sheep it has reached to four inches. The number of hill sheep had 
rather decreased since 1800, and those in the lowlands had materially 
so; but now that South-Down wool is once more obtaining a remune¬ 
rating price, the flocks are becoming larger than they were. The co¬ 
lour of the wool differs materially, according to the colour of the soil. 
The shortest and the finest wool is produced on the chalky soil, where 
the sheep have to travel far for the food; but there is a harshness 
and brittleness about this wool which was always seriously objected to. 
The microscopic appearance of the South-Down wool is delineated 
in page 90. The fibre is the six-hundredth part of an inch in diameter; 
that of the Saxony wool being but the eight-hundred-and-fourth part. 
The serrations are only 2,080 to an inch; while in the Saxony wool 
2,720 were observed in the same space. 
The practice of letting and selling rams was more prevalent and 
profitable among the breeders of the South-Down sheep, than of any 
other kind, except the Leicesters. At the sheep-shearing at Woburn, 
in 1800, a South-Down ram belonging to the Duke of Bedford, was let 
for one season at 80 guineas, two others at 40 guineas each, and four 
more at 28 guineas each. This practice has been of later years pur¬ 
sued extensively and profitably by Messrs. Ellman, Grantham, Todd, 
and others. 
Two years previously to this, the Emperor of Russia bought two of 
Mr. Ellman’s rams, in order to try the effect of the cross on the north¬ 
ern sheep. The Duke of Bedford, at the request of Mr. Ellman, put 
a price upon them, observing that he did not wish to charge a foreign 
sovereign, who had done him so much honor, more than any other in¬ 
dividual. The price fixed by the Duke was 300 guineas for the two, 
and he purchased two more for himself at the same rate. 
The pure South-Downs have penetrated to almost every part of the 
kingdom, and everywhere they have succeeded when care was taken 
that the locality and the soil were suited to the breed - T except that on 
the northern hills, where the Cheviots and black-faced sheep wander, 
they have not thriven so well as on their native downs .—Library of 
Useful Knowledge ,, Farmers’ Series. 
ON THE USE OF' LIME AS A MANURE— By M. Puvis. 
Translated for the Farmers’ Register from the Annales de V Agriculture Fran- 
caise, of 1835.—( Concluded from page 98. J 
ABSORPTION OF PLANTS, IN VEGETATION ON CULTIVATED SOILS. 
32. Vegetation on uncultivated soils operates under conditions alto¬ 
gether different from those of the cultivated, so that the results receive 
modifications which it is important to examine. 
Nature produces, and continues to produce, all the vegetable mass in 
spontaneous growth,'without any other condition than the alternation 
and succession of species. In vegetation on cultivated land, by bring¬ 
ing together the same individual plants, which are to grow abundantly 
on a soil and in a climate which, in most cases, are not those which 
nature had designed, there are required, besides the general condition 
of alternation of the species, frequent tillage of the soil, and means to 
repair its losses, that the culture may be productive and be continued. 
However, with these new conditions, the force of absorption of plants 
on the atmosphere still furnishes the greater part of the vegetable prin¬ 
ciples in soils not limed—and still more in limed soils. 
To form a precise idea, we will take it in the land of the writer, its 
culture and its biennial rotation. As the same qualities of soil are 
found elsewhere, as no particular circumstance increases or impairs its 
products, there would be found similar results, for the same qualities 
of soil, with a different culture. The inferences which we will draw 
from ours will apply then to all others. 
On our soil of the third class, [or worst quality,] fallow returns every 
two years, with a biennial manuring of 120 quintals to the hectare. 
This mass contains more than four-fifths of water, which should not be 
counted as manure, and consequently the substance which serves for 
the reparation of the soil is reduced to 24 quintals. We reap, in rye, 
straw, and buckwheat, after the year of fallow, a dry weight of 40 to 
50 quintals on an average. If it is supposed that all the manure is 
consumed, or employed in forming vegetable substance, still the soil 
would have furnished 18 to 20 quintals more than it received, and 
which excess would be due to the power of absorption, whether of the 
soil or of the plants, on the atmosphere. 
On land of middle quality, which yields a crop every year, with a 
double manuring, that is to say, of 48 quintals of dry manure, in two 
years there is a product of wheat, maize, or potatoes, which amounts 
to from 12 to 15,000 weight, 120 to 150 quintals, of which two-thirds, 
or 80 quintals at least, are derived from absorption. • ' 
On soils of good quality, with a manuring of one-third more than the 
last, which is equal to 64 quintals of the dry substance to the hectare, 
there are obtained of dry products, in grain, straw, roots, or hay, double 
of the last, or nearly so, of which three-fourths, or 180 quintals, are due 
to the power of absorption. 
Lastly—upon the most fertile soils, (sols d’exception,) where ma¬ 
nures are useless, the product, often double, or at least half as much 
more than the last mentioned, will amount to 360 quintals to the hec¬ 
tare in two years. This product would be, as in. spontaneous vegeta¬ 
tion, entirely due to absorption. 
We should have, then, to represent the products of two years, in 
quintals, in the four classes of soil under consideration, the progressive 
amounts of 42, 130, 240, 360; or, by deducting from these products the 
weight of the manure, we would have, to represent the power of ab¬ 
sorption, the progression 18, 82, 176, 360 quintals. From this is de¬ 
duced, as the first conclusion, that, supposing the plants have consumed 
and annihilated all the substance of the manure given, (which is beyond 
the truth,) plants receive a much greater part of their substance from 
the atmosphere than from the soil; and that this power of drawing 
food from the atmosphere increases with the goodness of quality in, 
soils. 
33. The proportion of fixed substances, or ashes, in agricultural pro¬ 
ducts, is 43 pounds to the 1,000, and consequently, in our four classes 
of land, the quantity amounts to 180, 559, 1,032, 1,548 pounds. But the 
soluble saline substances format least half of these ashes: they are 
then produced in the two years of the rotation, in the quantities of 90, 
279, 516, 774 pounds. But, according to Kirwan, barn yard manure 
yields two per cent of soluble salts: then the manure given to these 
soils contained 48, 96, pounds, 128 of saline substances, which, being 
deducted from the preceding quantities, leave the four classes of soils 
stated 42. 183, 388, 774 pounds of products in soluble salts, in two years 
of the rotation, gained solely by the absorbing forces of the soil and of 
plants. 
34. But, in the same soils, with the same manures and the same til¬ 
lage, by the addition to the thickness of the ploughed layer of only 
one-thousandth part of lime, the produfcts, whether volatile or fixed. 
