FINE WOOL SHEEP HUSBANDRY. 107 



(between Merino and Ryeland) in fineness, by " one 

 dip" too much " with the Spaniard !"* 



Dr. Browne, in his learned " TBICHOLOGIA MAM- 

 MALIUM," states that I advised the crossing of the 

 South Down and Merino, and wishes to hear " from 

 myself" why I did so, after I had condemned the cross 

 between the Leicester and Merino as an " unquali- 

 fied absurdity." Having never before answered this 

 question publicly, I will do so now. I advised it as 

 I would advise the Finlander, in a season of famine, 

 to continue his practice of mixing pulverized wood 

 or straw with meal, if he found it necessary " to fill 

 out his stomach ;" but I should not tell him that I 

 thought the pulverized wood and meal constituted a 

 mixture better than all meal, or as good, provided 

 both were equally accessible. Where there is a defi- 

 ciency of capital to stock wool-growing farms with 

 pure Merino sheep, or where the latter cannot be ob- 

 tained rapidly enough, it is better to cross coarse 

 ewes with Merino lambs, than to leave the land idle. 

 In the progress of time the produce will become ex- 

 cellent and profitable sheep ; but to suppose that the 

 produce of the fourth or of the twentieth cross will 

 equal pure and properly bred Merinos, is what no 

 breeder of ripe experience in the premises ever dream- 

 ed of. Base blood runs out rapidly by arithmetical 

 calculation ; but practically it stays in, and is ever 

 and anon cropping out, by exhibiting the old base 

 characteristics, in a way that sets all " calculation" 

 at defiance. The observing Germans have a very 

 good way of terming all, even the highest bred mon- 



* See his letter, published in papers of Bath Agricultural Society, 

 Vol. X. 



