A description of these hills, however short, would be incomplete
without some reference to the sheep, great companies of which roam the
sunlit expanse with their attendant guardians--man and dog (who deserve
a chapter to themselves). Southdown mutton has a fame that is
extra-territorial; it has been said that the flavour is due to the
small land snail of which the sheep must devour millions in the course
of their short lives. But the explanation is more probably to be found
in the careful breeding of the local farmers of a century or so ago.
Gilbert White refers to two distinct breeds--"To the west of the Adur
... all had horns, smooth white faces and white legs, but east of that
river all flocks were poll sheep (hornless) ... black faces with a
white tuft of wool." Since that day, however, east has been west and
west east and the twain have met.

[Illustration: OLD HOUSE, PETWORTH.]

The traveller _may_ be fortunate enough to come across a team of oxen
ploughing. The phenomenon is yearly becoming more rare; but within
sight and sound of the Eastbourne expresses between Plumpton and
Cooksbridge this archaic survival from a remote past is more likely to
be seen than elsewhere.

The oxen are usually black and are the remnants of a particular breed,
the outcome of a long and slow experiment in getting the right sort of
draught animal. The ploughs themselves, as Jefferies says, "must have
been put together bit by bit in the slow years--slower than the ox....
How many thousand, thousand clods must have been turned in the furrows
before ... the curve to be given to this or that part grew upon the
mind, as the branch grows upon the tree!"