CHAPTER III. 



AMEEIOAN MEBINOS ESTABLISHED AS A VAEIETY, 



THE MIXED LEONESE OR JARVIS MERINOS THE INFANTADO 



OR ATWOOD MERINOS THE PAULAR OR RICH MERINOS 

 OTHER MERINOS. 



THE MIXED LEONESE OR JARVIS MERINOS. The origin 

 of Mr. Jarvis' flock has been given. Their pedigrees rested 

 on his own direct statements ; and his integrity and veracity 

 were never challenged by friend or foe. As has been seen, he 

 mixed five families of Spanish sheep, the Paulars considerably 

 predominating in numbers, but his son writes me that for 

 the purpose of "accommodating the manufacturers" he bred 

 " in the contrary direction " from the type of the darker 

 colored and yolkier families.* The appearance of his sheep 

 when I first saw them, something over twenty years since, I 

 thought plainly indicated that he had "accommodated the 

 manufacturers " by chiefly using rams of his Escurial family 

 or which bore a large proportion of that blood. They were 

 lighter colored than the original Spanish sheep of other 

 families and their wool was finer. It was entirely free from 

 hardened yolk, or "gum," internally and externally, and 

 opened on a rosy skin with a style and brilliancy which 

 resembled the Saxon. It was longish, for those times, on the. 

 back and sides, but shorter on the belly, and did not cover the 

 head and legs anything like as well as those parts are covered 

 in the improved sheep of the present day. It was of fair 

 medium thickness on the best animals. The form was perhaps 

 rather more compact than that of the original Spanish sheep, 

 but altogether it bore a close resemblance to them. I think 

 that pi-ior to 1840, Mr. Jarvis had begun to breed back 

 toward the other strains of blood in his flock. At about 

 that period small and choice lots of breeding ewes were 



* See Charles Jarvis' letter to me in my report on " Fine- Wool Sheep Husbandry," 



