FINE WOOL SHEEP HUSBANDRY.. 37 



on the single fact above given ; it is only one among 

 a number of scattering hints and circumstances which 

 have led me to the opinion that the sheep were from 

 the cabana of the Duke of Infantado.* 



One thing is certain. ISTo such ram as Mr. Bulk- 

 ley's could have been of Escurial blood. And the 

 darkest and yolkiest sheep bred in the United States 

 (Mr. Stephen Atwood's family), which trace directly 

 to sheep bred by Colonel Humphreys, cannot be de- 

 scended from the whitest and dryest fleeced sheep of 

 Spain. ' 



Judging from the statements in Colonel Humphreys' 

 manuscript letters lying before me, he not only found 

 great satisfaction but great success in breeding his 

 sheep. The very ones he brought from Spain, he 

 says, increased half a pound in their fleeces ; and their 

 descendants continued to improve in that and every 

 other particular. He speaks glowingly of their hardi- 

 ness and propensity to fatten; and in the highest 

 terms of their mutton. This gentleman (to whom the 

 farmers of New England should erect a statue) died in 

 1818, when causes, hereafter to be detailed, had sunk 

 the Merinos into contempt and neglect. His invalua- 

 ble sheep were then scattered, and, as a general *hing, 

 they appear to have fallen into the hands of those who 

 attached no great value to their blood, for I can 

 learn, of but two or three instances where they were 

 preserved distinct after 1826 ; and it is a lesson of 



* Colonel Humphreys was a favorite at both the courts of Portu- 

 gal and Spain. He had been made highly wealthy by marriage. He 

 had the means to pay for the best ; and those who know any thing of 

 him, know how absurd it would be to suppose he failed to instruct his 

 ajjcnt to obtain the best. 



