214 State Board of AGiiicuLTriRE, &g. 



tlie conntiy offerins; large prices for iine wool, drawing 

 bright pictures of the l)rilliant future of those who had to 

 do with the growing or manufacturing of it. Owners of 

 Spanisli Merinos were over-persuaded, and many who had 

 carried along tlieir pure sheep under every discouragement 

 yielded now, and fell into the mad torrent of Saxony sheep, 

 and rushed along down the stream with the rest. There 

 was an " ignorance of the knowledge of fine wool breed- 

 ing,'" and of the demands of the Ainerican market for wool- 

 ens. We had no large upper class " to covet a wardrobe 

 of the finest texture," and our manufacturers were not sus- 

 tained ; and failing to get that support they had fondly 

 anticipated from home, and re(;eiving no foreign orders, 

 were unable to pay the prices they had led growers to 

 expect. A reaction took place after the crash of 1837, and 

 culminated in the final overthrow of Saxony sheep in Amer- 

 ica witli the horizontal ad valorttn tarift of 184f>. 



" In 1813 Stephen Atwood, of Woodbury, Connecticut, 

 bought a Spanish Merino ewe, of Colonel Humphrey, for 

 one hundred and twenty dollars. This ewe he bred to 

 Humphrey's rams, or rams he knew to be of pure Hum- 

 phrey blood, until 1830, when he bred from his own flock." 

 At tliis time pedigrees of the old fashioned Merinos 

 received very little attention. Mr. Atwood alone, in his 

 respect, we might almost say veneration, for the Humphrey 

 sheep, having once lived with Colonel Humphrey, and 

 formed liis taste from his flock, adhered to them in oppo 

 sition to the opinion and practice of every other sheep 

 breeder that was then, or has since come prominently before 

 the public, except Hon. Charles Rich, of Shoreham, Ver- 



