228 THE BREEDING OF ANIMALS 



selection can accomplish in the improvement of the 

 domestic animals. The first importation of Spanish 

 Merino sheep to America was made in 1815. The aver- 

 age weight of fleece of these sheep at that time was 

 three or four pounds a head. This average was in- 

 creased by American breeders until, in 1880, the average 

 fleece from selected flocks was fifteen pounds a head, and 

 single individuals were produced which sheared as high 

 as thirty-five pounds. Plumb 1 reports that the heaviest 

 fleece on record weighed 44 pounds and 3 ounces and was 

 taken from a two-year-old ram at the public shearing 

 of the Vermont Sheep Shearing Association. But the 

 finest specimens of the American Merino breed were the 

 result of in-breeding. " Mr. Atwood bred his entire flock 

 from one ewe, and thus, after being drawn beyond all 

 doubt from an unmixed Spanish Cabana, they have 

 been bred in-and-in, in the United States, for upward 

 of sixty years." 2 "The ram Gold Drop for which Mr. 

 Hammond refused twenty-five thousand dollars," 3 was 

 closely in-bred. 



213. In-breeding dogs. Many examples of in-breed- 

 ing among dogs are mentioned in the literature of breed- 

 ing, but unfortunately the records of these cases are very 

 incomplete and many are of doubtful scientific value. 

 The author has had an opportunity to examine somewhat 

 carefully the results of long-continued in-breeding among 

 fox terriers. Arthur Rhys, the herdsman at the University 

 of Missouri, has practiced very close in-breeding of fox 

 terriers for nine generations. Daughter No. 1, from 

 wholly unrelated parents, was bred back to Designer, her 



1 Plumb, "Types and Breeds of Farm Animals," p. 349. 



2 Randall, "Practical Shepherd." 



3 Miles, "Stock Breeding," p. 150. 



