10 



FINE WQOL SHEEP HUSBANDRY. 



These weights and measures, except those of the 

 American sheep,* are Austrian. The Austrian pound 



* The American Merino ewes were taken from one of my flocks, 

 composed of sheep of good medium size, and I think they were a 

 little heavier than the average of the flock. They were weighed, &c., 

 in December, 1861, and had been sheared only five months so that 

 their weights did not, like the Spanish, include full fleeces. They 

 were in good ordinary condition, and no more. The same is true of 

 the ram. He is a small, short animal for one of his family, but has 

 great substance, and is specially prized for the uniformity of his off- 

 spring, for their low, broad, beautiful forms, and for the great length 

 and thickness of their wool. His own fleece has reached to about 21 

 Ibs. In other respects there was nothing unusual iu the appearance 

 or form of any of the four; and their shape, &c., would about cor- 

 respond with that of the flock they were taken from, or that pro- 

 bably of any other prime full blood flock in the country. The ram 

 was 25 inches high on the shoulder, the ewes about 23 inches each. 

 I wish Petri had given the heights of the Spanish sheep. When the 

 diflerence in weight is taken into account, it is remarkable that there 



