a 
4 
. 
ONE OF THE PARENTS OF THE CORRIEDALE 
Lincoln sheep were crossed on Merinos in order to produce a breed that would unite the long 
fleece and large size of the Lincoln with the superior wool of the Merino. 
The Lincoln ram 
here shown is probably about the type used in the establishment of the Corriedale breed; 
he was champion at the Christ Church, N. Z., show in 1914. 
(Fig. 10.) 
and Australia Land Company. 
gether with the extra weight of fleece 
procured from ewes having half long 
wool blood, gave rise to a good deal of 
crossing in the seventies before the 
meat trade had seriously affected the 
sheep husbandry of the island dominion. 
Later the establishment of the frozen 
meat trade increased the popularity of 
the cross-bred sheep and today New 
Zealand has less than 10% of Merinos 
among its flocks. The foregoing might 
be said to relate to the economics rather 
than to the genetics of the Corriedale 
but it forth the motives of the 
founders and the material used in 
forming the breed that has now reached 
the United States, South America, and 
Australia. 
The Corriedale is a result of the orig- 
sets 
90 
Owned by the New Zealand 
inal practice of crossing long wool rams 
upon Merino ewes. The problem be- 
fore the New Zealand sheep raisers in the 
seventies and eighties was the same as 
that now interesting many western 
American flockmasters. The cross-bred 
ewe is a very useful animal but at pres- 
ent can only be secured by combination 
of two separate pure types. While 
many of the New Zealanders graded up 
their flocks by the continuous use of 
rams of the long wool breeds, others con- 
tinued to breed half-bred rams on cross- 
bred ewes and a few conceived the idea 
of fixing the type of the first cross sheep. 
In less than forty years there has been 
produced a breed which, impartial crit- 
ics state, exhibits fully as much uniform- 
ity of type as is found in most of the 
