FINE WOOL SHEEP HUSBANDRY. 43 



shipped in 1809, 1810, and the early part of 1811. 

 Charles Henry Hall, of Pomfret, Connecticut, (after- 

 wards so well known as a breeder of horses, cattle, 

 &c., in New York), who, I think, was American 

 consul at Cadiz, at the time sent home about 50 

 Merinos to his father, Dr. Hall. " They were 

 Paulars, and good ones, too," says a competent judge. 

 Peck & Atwater, of New Haven, imported a cargo 

 of Merinos into that city in 1810.* A cargo of Infan- 

 tados went into New London in 1810 or 1811. 

 Abraham Heaton, of New Haven, and an associate, 

 imported a cargo into that place. Mr. Heaton writes 

 me (January 29, 1862) : " I have no invoice of the 

 particular breed of the sheep at this time, but I think 

 I gave the papers regarding the breed, &c., to Daniel 

 Bacon, of Woodbury, of this state, since dead, he 

 having been one of the principal purchasers. I well 

 recollect that a part of the cargo was composed of 

 what is called the Guadalupe breed." A cargo of fine 

 Paulars went into New York in 1811. 



* Mr. Jacob N. Blakeslee, of Watertown, Conn., whose flock on the 

 maternal side is descended from these sheep, writes me, January 15, 

 1862 : " I took them of Captain Peck, to keep one year, for half the 

 wool, and half the increase ; they were the same he selected in Spain ; 

 they had the Spanish brand on the nose of every sheep ; he told me 

 he selected them himself from the flock of the 'i)on Delle Infandado,' 

 which was the best flock in Spain." 



Since the preceding was written, I have found a letter from Mr- 

 Blakeslee, in Appendix to Mr. Morrell's "American Shepherd," in 

 which he says : " I began a flock of sheep, in 1815, that were imported 

 by Peck & Atwater, of New Haven. A part of them were the 

 Negretti, and a part Montarco. I let them run together till 1823." 

 There are other conflicts in the statements of the two letters. I men- 

 tion it as a lesson to a large class of sheep breeders, of the impropriety, 

 of relying solely on their memory in regard to ancient pedigrees. 



