102 FINE WOOL SHEEP HUSBANDRY. 



sheep, I can also say I have seen crosses from these 

 long-legged, slab-sided, narrow-chested French rams as 

 miserable and worthless as can be imagined." 



My own experiments in this cross, candor requires 

 me to say, have been less successful. Some of them 

 were made with a ram bred by' Col. Rotch and pure 

 blood American Merino ewes ; some were purchased 

 of gentlemen who started with such ewes and bred 

 them to first-rate French rams obtained of Messrs. 

 Taintor and Patterson ; and some were got by pure 

 American rams on high grade French and American 

 ewes (averaging say fifteen-sixteenths or more French, 

 and the remainder American Merino- blood). From 

 this last cross I expected much. The ewes were com- 

 pact and noble-looking animals. The produce was 

 obviously better than the get of French rams on the 

 same ewes ; but after watching it for two years, I have 

 recently come rather reluctantly to the conclusion that, 

 in this climate, even these grades are not intrinsically 

 as valuable as pure American Merinos. 



But the Merino ram which got them, though appar- 

 ently presenting the most admirable combination of 

 points for such a cross,* has not proved himself a su- 

 perior sire with other ewes ; and I do not, therefore, 

 regard this experiment as conclusive. 



Some well-managed experiments of both these kinds 

 have been tried by the Messrs. Baker, of Lafayette, 

 and the Messrs. Clapp, of Pompey, !N"ew York. They 



* He weighed about 140 Ibs., was compact and symmetrical, and 

 his fleece weighed 14 Ibs. washed. He was a very dark, yolky sheep. 

 He was bred in Vermont ; and though undoubtedly full blood, prob- 

 ably did not spring from ancestors as good as himself or in other 

 words, he was an " accidental" animal. 



