White was writing from Ringmer, where he often stayed with his aunt and her ancient tortoise, Timothy, the long-suffering recipient of various experiments by the inquisitive Hampshire vicar.
The visits also facilitated his observations on the distinctive hornless (or polled) sheep, black-faced and with a white tuft of wool on their foreheads, that grazed the eastern ranges of the Downs across East and West Sussex. Different from the coarser, horned animals further west, these were Southdown sheep, later famous around the world.
As his walks took him up Mount Caburn, the striking, wedge-shaped hill that rises above the Lewes brooks, White almost certainly saw the Southdown flocks of the Ellman family, shortly to be inherited by the breed’s great improver, John Ellman (1753–1832), on succeeding his father to his Glynde farm tenancy in East Sussex in 1780.
The Southdowns were the linear descendants of sheep that had been grazing the Downs since Neolithic times. Even in the 13th century, the flocks on the hills running from Lewes eastwards to Eastbourne were noted for the quality of their wool. Ellman, however, whose farm complex was in a fold of the hills directly west of Glynde Place, also wanted to improve it as a sweet mutton animal. His selective breeding programme focused on using rams and ewes noted for the quality of their wool and carcass shape.
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة February 23, 2022 من Country Life UK.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
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هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة February 23, 2022 من Country Life UK.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
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