130 FINE WOOL SHEEP HUSBANDRY. 



wools. This is in the breed of the sheep. Ohio has 

 a smaller proportion of the heavy fleeced yolky Meri- 

 nos than New York,* and New York a less propor- 

 tion (though a larger number in the aggregate) than 

 Vermont. 



The uses of yolk have been stated by all writers to 

 render ,the wool pliant and to promote its growth. 



* According to the census of 1850, the average weight of fleeces in 

 Ohio fell not greatly below that of New York ; but that, I take it, 

 was owing to the fact that the common, low grade, dry-wooled 

 farmer's sheep of Ohio are larger and heavier fleeced animals than 

 those of New York. If limestone land and water, feeding on stub- 

 bles, etc., either increases the yolk (which is very doubtful) or 

 increases the amount of dirt caught and retained by the yolk ; and if 

 limestone water fails to remove these as thoroughly as soft water (both 

 of which are undoubtedly facts), then much of the grain growing por- 

 tions of both Ohio and New York should produce heavier washed or 

 unwashed fleeces than New England, or than the southern tier coun- 

 ties of New York ; and so I have no doubt they would, if all other 

 circumstances were made strictly equal. On the best wheat lands of 

 New York, sheep do not require to be fed on stubbles to get dirty. 

 Those lands are generally seeded down with red clover, which does 

 not, under any circumstances, form so close a sod as the timothy, June 

 grass, white clover, etc., of the grazing regions, and particularly not 

 where it is broken up every two or three years in the usual way for 

 grain. It is rare to see a clover pasture in the grain regions closely 

 fed down, where the ground is not in every direction visible between 

 the stools of clover ; and the sharp hoofs of the sheep loosen the dirt 

 in summer, soihat hi one way or another it soils the surface of the 

 wool. In the old pastures of many portions of New England and our 

 own southern counties, it would be difficult to see the ground on one 

 hundred acres. Unless the sheep have it blown on them from the roads 

 or plowed fields, by the winds, they scarcely come in contact with a 

 particle of dirt during the summer. These facts explain the differences 

 in the color of the sheep in the two regions. The violent and pouring 

 rains of the Southern States prevent a great accumulation of either 

 yolk or dirt, so that all Merino sheep from the North grow lighter 

 colored there, and climate may add to the effect. 



