File:Sheep, breeds and management (1893) (14595414767).jpg

Identifier: sheepbreedsmanag00wrig (find matches)
Title: Sheep, breeds and management
Year: 1893 (1890s)
Authors: Wrightson, John
Subjects: Sheep
Publisher: London, Vinton
Contributing Library: UMass Amherst Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Boston Library Consortium Member Libraries

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ckled or grey; the lips thin, and the spacebetween the eyes and the nose narrow, the forehead wellcovered with wool between and around the ears. The head,according to the younger Ellman, is deer-like, but not too fullat the orbit or eye-cap, as such bony protuberances are founddangerous in lambing ewes. The ears of the Southdown are,comparatively, short and rounded, and carried more erectthan in the Hampshire Down. This gives an appearance ofgreater narrowness between the ears. The chap, or underjaw, is fine and fleshless, assisting to produce the deer-likeappearancce already mentioned; and the eye is full andplacid, giving the same impression. The appearance of theSouthdowns is characteristic and unmistakable. Their fineness,smallness, and high-bred character contrast with those morerobust races, the Hampshire, Shropshire, and Oxford, andit is this contrast perhaps which gives the idea of breedingand fineness which strikes an observer in passing a number ofclasses of sheep in review.
Text Appearing After Image:
THE SOUTHDOWN. 51 One of the advantages of the breed, which it shares withother Down races, is its power of resisting the evil effects ofover-stocking. As far back as 1788, Arthur Young writes:— Mr. Ellman, on 500 acres, has 700 ewes, lambs, andwethers in winter, and 1,450 of all sorts in summer, besides140 head of cattle. These numbers read even now asextraordinary, before the days of cake feeding, or impor-tation of cheap corn from America, and are scarcely tobe rivalled. Cotswold or Leicester breeders would considersuch a stock as inconsistent with keeping up either thestature or the health of their flocks, and yet such is thecharacter of the Southdown that they can resist the influences of over-crowding. The number of sheep kept byWiltshire and Hampshire sheep farmers in these days arenot much short of those maintained by Mr. Ellman, andwhen we take into consideration the greater size of theHampshire sheep, the weight per acre must be considerablygreater. The Southdown race in i

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