212 State Boakd ok Agriculture, &c. 



Leon, and presented characteristics indicative of the peculiar 

 'tastes and skill of their owners and breeders, from whom 

 they took their names. 



" In 1809 and 1810," says Randall, ''Mr. Jarvis, Consul 

 at Lisbon, Portugal, taking advantage of the offers of the 

 Spanish nobles, bought and shipped to different parts of the 

 United States about three thousand eight hundred and fifty 

 sheep. About thirteen hundred of these were Aiguerras, two 

 hundred Lscurials, and two hundred Montercos. The 

 remainder consisted of Paulars and Nigrettes, mostly of the 



former." 



At this period Merino sheep bore a very high price, as 

 has been before remarked of Chancellor Livingston's. One 

 hundred dollars per head was not uncommon, and one 

 thousand dollars occasional. 



Andrew Cock, of Flushing, Long Island, in ISII paid to 

 Richard Crowningshield, importer, eleven hundred dollars 

 per head for two ewes of the Escui-ial Cabana ; but the 

 major part of his flock were from the Paular, and purchased 

 at from fifty to one hundred dollars per head the same year. 



In 1815 the treaty of Ghent i-emoved the embargo, 

 re-opened commerce, checked by our war of 1812, with Eng- 

 land, admitting cheap labor manufactured foreign goods free, 

 thus destroying, at one fell sweep, the infant manufacturing 

 industry of our own country, and with that, as in Spain, 

 away went sheep. Randall says : " Such revulsion ensued 

 that V)efore tlie (;lose of the year full blooded Merino sheep 

 were sold for one dollar per head," and wool at almost 

 nothing. 



" Wool did not materially rally in j)rice for the nine sue- 



