252 PROSPECTS OF AMERICAN AGRICULTURE. 



and earnostiiesa whether this was not really the fact. I need not 

 say that there is not a particle of truth in the idea. We can raise 

 just as good combing wool in the United States as can be raised 

 in Canada. And the only reason why Canada combing wool sells 

 for from 15 to 20 per cent, higher than our combing wool is, that 

 the Canadian farmers understand the management of long-wooled 

 English sheep better than we do. They raise more roots and feed 

 better. It is not any difference in soil or climate. We can raise 

 just as good combing wool as can be raised in Canada, and we are 

 learning how to do it. 



Some time since I read an article in the London Agricultural 

 Gazette headed " The most profitable flock in Essex, England." 

 Merino sheep were imported into England nearly a century ago 

 when fine wool commanded high prices. But it was found that, 

 owing to the demand for mutton, the coarser-wooled sheep were 

 much more profitable. Still the sheep were kept for many years. 

 Finally, however, the attempt to raise the fine wool was aban- 

 doned, and these Merino sheep were crossed with the English 

 mutton sheep. And it was a flock of these cross-bred English and 

 Merino sheep that was pronounced the most profitable flock in the 

 County of Essex. My own experience in this country is in the 

 same direction. By selecting a flock of common Merino ewes, 

 which averaged at full maturity 80 pounds each, and which cost 

 me $2.40 per head, and by putting them to a high-bred, pure 

 Cotswold ram, I got a lot of strong, healthy lambs which, with 

 good feed, grew rapidly and afforded excellent mutton, and the 

 wool, even the first cross, sold for combing. A second cross, that 

 is, by taking the ewe lambs from the first cross and putting them, 

 when about 18 months old, to a pure-bred Cotswold ram, pro- 

 duced lambs which approximated closely to the Cotswold in size 

 and in length of wool, while the lambs are hardier and stronger, 

 and the wool finer, and the mutton of better quality than the pure- 

 bred Cotswolds. I killed one of these | Cotswold-Merino sheep, 

 which, at 15 months old, dressed 25 pounds per quarter. 



We have millions of these hardy, common Merino ewes, which 

 can be bought at from $2 to $4 per head, and two or three crosses 

 of Cotswold or Leicester blood will, with good feed, give us not 

 "the most profitable flock in Essex" merely, but, in certain 

 sections, the best and most profitable flocks in the world. The 

 Cotswolds and Leicesters are too fat. The Merinos are too thin. 

 The Cotswold wool is too coarse and unnecessarily long. The 



