Mkrino Shekp Industry. 213 



ceeding years, and during that period iiiaiiy of the full 

 blooded flocks of the country were broken u}) or adid- 



terated." 



The woolen tariff of 1824 gave new life to the produc- 

 tion of fine wool, and for a few years Saxon Merinos were 

 largely imported into the United States. " As many as 

 seventeen hundred were brought into the port of Boston, 

 and nearly or quite as many into other ports. Some of them, 

 selling as high asfi'om four hundred to four hundred and fifty 

 dollars per head, were of fine blood, but very many were low 

 " grade," and the great majority miserable " stop sale 

 sheep," as they were called in Germany, and brought along 

 with them scab and foot-rot, and, from all accounts, about 

 all the ills the Merino race are heirs to. 



These sheep sheared a fleece of fine, downy wool, of from 

 one and one-half to three pounds, but so destitute of oil 

 that the ordinary exposure of the country would cause it to 

 " cot " on the sheep's back, and the ends to become 

 dead and di-y. Such wool " flies" and wastes in the manu- 

 facture, indeed becomes worthless, often, for other purposes 

 than mats or saddle blankets. I remember, when a boy, of 

 seeing one of tliese " cotted " fleeces, as they, were called, 

 that liad been used for years as a " sheep-skin " under the 

 saddle, and there was no appearance then of its " felting " 

 power relaxing. Boys on the shearing floor used to have 

 great fun haulino- one another about the floor in their vain 

 endeavors to pull one of these tenacious fellows apart. 



In 1828 the fine wool tariff' " excited a mania," and 

 every producei- strove to obtain the finest wool j-egardless 

 of every other consideration. Mamifacturers went through 



