172 



The Journal of Heredity 



but when spring came, notwithstanding 

 the fact that the ewes had been bred 

 to the ram which seemed in the best 

 physical condition, the lambs did not 

 show the improvement from a fur 

 standpoint which we expected, except 

 those lambs which came from the two 

 ewes that the previous year gave us two 

 good lambs. 



FLEECES DETERIORATE. 



A careful examination of the curls of 

 the lambs of the two good ewes showed, 

 however, that there was less lustre 

 than the year before, and less tightness 

 of curls, and my father remarked that 

 we would probably find that the same 

 Karakul shee]:> which gave us excellent 

 result in Bokhara would fail us in Texas, 

 where the climatic conditions were 

 different, especially as far as rainfall 

 is concerned. 



The third year showed considerable 

 improvement, especially with the two 

 good ewes, which gave excellent resvdts. 

 We then began to study the original 

 five rams and noticed that the character 

 of the wool was not the same, and that 

 Teddy, named in honor of Roosevelt, 

 and another ram had coarse long wool, 

 whereas the others had two classes of 

 wool fibers — a long coarse gray wool, 

 in which was hidden a fine lustreless 

 short reddish wool resembling micro- 

 scopically that of our Merinos. To our 

 great surprise we found that the two 

 good ewes also were free from the fine 

 underwool. The next year, we satisfied 

 ourselves absolutely that the fine wool 

 present in most of the sheep was 

 entirely responsible for their inferior fur- 

 producing qualities. We named sheep 

 which contained this fine wool "Karakul 

 Finewools" but later, when we found 

 that this fine wool came into the strain 

 through the admixture of some fine- 

 wool-Vjcaring Afghans, we changed the 

 name to "Karakul-Afghan." 



It was quite by accident that I found 

 out that by breeding Teddy to the 

 Karakul ewes fairly good results were 

 obtained, especially from those ewes 

 that had less fine wool in them; and in 

 one case a Karakul-Afghan ewe that 



had but little fine underwool, which 

 was bred to a son of Teddy, himself not 

 entirely free from fine wool, gave us a 

 fair lamb, which was exhibited in 

 Omaha in 1911 by Joseph F. Simonson. 

 A number of other tests finally con- 

 vinced me that a very small amount of 

 fine wool can be overcome, and con- 

 siderable fine wool in ewes can be 

 neutralized, where the ram is entirely 

 free from the short fine underwool. 

 Two crosses suffice to breed it out 

 entirely. 



DIFFERENCE IN CROSSES. 



Where we crossed Merinos and 

 Shropshires with Teddy, a very inferior 

 skin was produced,^ in which there was 

 great lack of lustre, and a very imperfect 

 curl formation, giving the skin a matty 

 appearance, valueless from a fur stand- 

 point, but excellent results were ob- 

 tained when the same ram was bred 

 to such of our lustrous longwools as 

 Lincolns, and such red Persian fat- 

 rtmips as were entirely free from short 

 wool, and possessed very coarse wool. 



Where Teddy was bred to longwool 

 ewes, free from fine wool, and the skins 

 of the lambs were obtained the first 

 few days after birth, they showed 

 tight curls uniform in size and posesssing 

 the required lustre. Such half-blood 

 skins were valued by Pretorius and 

 Thorer, assisted by Henry Basch of 

 New York, to whom we were referred 

 by the Department of Agriculture, at 

 from $8 to $12 per skin. In all cases 

 where the prices ranged from S3 to S4 

 the skins showed lack of lustre and curl 

 formation, which was easih' traced 

 to fine wool, either in the Karakul rams 

 or grade native longwools. The 

 Middlewater Cattle Company, which 

 purchased all the so-called Persian 

 sheep of Col. Charles Goodnight, found 

 that these were valueless, exce]5t where 

 the ewes were free from fine underwool, 

 and only where Teddy was employed 

 were the results satisfactory — in fact, 

 most of the SI 2 skins were half blood 

 Karakul- Persians. 



The red Persian fatrump, erroneously 

 called broadtail, and sometimes fattail. 



'The second cross is greatly improved. 



