780 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



Strive to get the other fellow's great-producing ewe or ewes. 

 Every flock has its mother queen. Several times we have purchased 

 lots of ewes ranging from six to ten, and found that some one ewe 

 in each lot was worth all the others as a blood line to improve 

 or add to the standing of the flock in general. Seize and hold fast 

 the old maxim that "like begets like" or the likeness of some an- 

 cestor as the law of transmission and inheritance, begetting like 

 when the potency of like types in sire and dam overcomes the law of 

 atavism, or striking back, and gives mould to offspring like some 

 ancestor when this is reversed. Inscribe on your banner "The stock 

 ram is my lever and he counts 60 per cent, of my plant." 



It may show a lack of delicacy and do violence to the law of pro- 

 priety to tear some leaves from a chapter of personal experience, 

 but we are going to do it just the same. In 1881, we had two sons 

 of Bismarck at the head of our flocks, one of our own breeding, the 

 other purchased of Mr. Burwell. These were quite liberally patro- 

 nized by outside breeders. Among them was Mr. Jas. R. Worth- 

 ington, who bred five ewes to each ram. The conditions were that 

 we were to choose a lamb from one ram's get and decide in ad- 

 vance which ram's get we would draw from. Prince Bismarck was 

 our favorite and of our own breeding, and we named him. In each 

 bunch was a very choice ewe lamb. We liked the lamb got by 

 Towando, the other ram, best and Mr. YV. preferred the one we 

 were entitled to take and an exchange was made. For two suc- 

 ceeding years he bred ten ewes to Prince Bismarck, we to have 

 our choice of each crop of lambs. From the first crop we selected 

 a ram lamb which we named Dudley, and that later proved a first 

 prize winner at our State Fair. Our next selection proved to be 

 a sister to Dudley, that won first and champion at our State Fair 

 when six years of age. When preparing the pedigrees of these 

 sheep for registration we found that the Towando ewe was out of 

 his ewe Madam Dudley No. 21 and that the other two were out of 

 No. 60 and she out of Madam Dudley, and that we had dipped deeply 

 into his great-producing ewe family. Towando ewe 159, bred to 

 Martin's Block, produced Don Dudley. Dudley is a connecting link 

 in the chain of sires between Mr. Peck's young Bismarck ram, the 

 only promising one known to the speaker, back to the great Bis- 

 marck. The Prince Bismarck ewe No. 195, bred to Prince Dudley, 

 a grandson of Dudley and out of Don Dudley's dam, produced Rex 

 Dudley, which proved a greater ewe sire than Don. 



In 1899, on account of a severe illness, we were obliged to sell our 

 flock of sheep, that represented the work of nearly forty years, 

 steady pull. When health came back to me again the love for the 

 Merino came back also, and red-hot too, and when laying the foun- 

 dation for flock No. 2 we were in possession of some facts that were 

 valuable aids to us. We knew that all our improved American 

 Merinos, were descended in the male line from Sweepstakes, Comet 

 and Eureka and that our most remote blood lines were more or 

 less of kindred strains. So we sought divergent lines of a common 

 type and type bred. We made our selections from Vermont, New 

 York and Michigan flocks. From Mr. A. A. Wood we secured a 

 ewe we sold him with our flock in '99. She was bred by Geo. N. 

 Payne, Bridgeport, Vt., and got by Don Dudley. This ewe we con- 

 sidered the best ewe lamb we saw in Vermont that trip. My in- 



