88 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



The breeds of slieep most esteemed in the State, seem to be 

 those which have more or less of Merino blood in them. The 

 Merinos of Spain, s,o celebrated for their beauty and the fine- 

 ness of their wool, have been known and valued for asrcs. 

 Bucks of this breed were sometimes purchased in Spain at the 

 rate of a talent ($1,200) a piece, by the ancient Greeks, nearly 

 twenty-fiV'C centuries ago. They were first imported into the 

 United States in 1802, three or four having been obtained by 

 Chancellor Livingston, then Minister to France. These had 

 belonged. to the celebrated Rambouillct flock, which Louis XVL 

 had obtained as a favor of Charles IV. in 1786. A short time 

 before, Gen. Humphreys, Minister to Spain from 1797 to 1801, 

 had purchased two hundred Merinos, had them sent through 

 Portugal, and shipped to this country. At that time, as has 

 been intimated in another connection, but little interest was 

 felt in the improvement of our stock, and these animals attract- 

 ed no notice for some years. In 1808, however, the embargo 

 led many to turn their attention to wool-growing, and fine wool 

 soon rose to the high price of $1.50 and $2 a pound. In 

 1809-10 no less than 3,G50 Merinos were imported, and these 

 were distributed throughout the United States. The impor- 

 tance of those early importations can hardly be overestimated. 

 They furnished our woollen manufactories with the raw material 

 at times when it would have been expensive and almost impos- 

 sible to obtain it abroad. 



To show, in some degree, how extensively the different 

 breeds have spread through the western part of the State, and 

 how important an interest sheep husbandry has become in that 

 region, I give a few extracts from letters received from men 

 engaged in it. 



A farmer of Berkshire County writes as follows: — 



"Merino sheep that will shear from three to tliree and a half 

 pounds of wool, worth, the present year, about fifty-three cents, 

 are mostly kept. While some keep mixtures of Leicester, South 

 Down and Cotswold, selling the lambs for mutton, others 

 keep good weighty Merino ewes, and let them run with coarse 

 bucks, selling the lambs in July or August, at some $2 per 

 head, and the ewes shearing some $1.50 worth of wool; the 

 wool paying the year's keeping of ewes, leaving the lambs to 



