CHAPTER 

 OBOSS-BBEEDING. 



CEOSS - BREEDING THE MEEINO AND COARSE BREEDS 



CROSSING DIFFERENT FAMILIES OF MERINOS CROSSING 



BETWEEN ENGLISH BREEDS AND FAMILIES RECAPITULA- 

 TION. 



CROSS-BREEDING, as I shall use the term, signifies 

 breeding between animals of different breeds, varieties, or 

 families; but it is not applicable to breeding between 

 animals of the same family, though they belong to different 

 and unrelated flocks. 



CEOSS- BREEDING BETWEEN THE MERINO AND COARSE 

 BREEDS. The range of cross-breeding between fine and 

 coarse-wooled sheep is comparatively limited, because there 

 is but one breed of the former of any recognized importance, 

 viz., the Merino. And no intelligent man, at the present day, 

 would any more think of 'crossing the Merino with another 

 breed to improve the characteristics sought in the Merino, 

 than he would of alloying gold with copper to improve the 

 qualities of the gold. 



When the object of such crossing has been to improve 

 coarse inferior races, it has succeeded for certain purposes. 

 The coarse common sheep of our country, for example, are 

 always rendered more valuable by an infusion of Merino 

 blood. They gain materially in fleece, and lose in no other 

 particular. But all crosses between the Merino and the 

 large, early-maturing improved English breeds and families, 

 such as the Leicesters, Cotswolds, and the different families 

 of Downs, have uniformly resulted in failure, and must 

 always do so, as long as the characteristics of the respective 

 breeds remain the same. The largest and heaviest fleeced 

 Merinos would probably increase the weight of fleece of even 

 the heaviest fleeced English long-wools, but the wool loses by 



