56 FINE WOOL SHEEP HUSBANDRY. 



their barns to build greater, or, at least, made the 

 most costly preparations for growing wool, and then 

 sent one hundred or one thousand miles to purchase 

 Saxon sheep at $100 or $500 a head. When the 

 prodigies arrived, with what a blank look the propri- 

 etor, and with what an irrepressible titter the farm 

 laborers, first surveyed the little strangers ! If they 

 had been exposed to storms and hardships on their 

 journey, they did indeed present a very disconsolate 

 appearance. 



But who can see through the folly of his times ? 

 The public were in the midst of a fine-wool cyclone. 

 The manufacturer and producer talked of the ex- 

 quisite fineness of this or that clip but whether the 

 sheep which bore it yielded much or little, had good 

 or bad carcasses, were hardy or feeble, was scarcely a 

 matter of thought. Enormously exaggerated expec- 

 tations of the future demand for Saxon wool were en- 

 tertained ; it was to increase with our increasing popu- 

 lation ; the tariff was to raise prices to the highest 

 pitch ; and then the tariff and the high prices were 

 to stand for generations, if not forever. Aladdin's 

 lamp was plainly discovered ! 



It is remarkable that this Saxon mania had so little 

 effect, comparatively, on the estimated value of the 

 descendants of the Spanish Merino in our country. 

 They rose in value ; but their chief value appeared 

 to be considered as resting on the fact that they would 

 grade up more rapidly than common sheep toward the 

 Saxon standard of fineness in other words, make 

 a better cross with the Saxon ! The idea that they 

 had a separate value, approaching that of the latter, 

 appears to have entered nobody's mind. Yet at that 



