140 FINE WOOL SHEEP HUSBANDRY. 



raise it up again if it becomes poor or debilitated. 

 The vital energies appear to be all exhausted. 



How often has a zealous beginner paid an extraor- 

 dinary price for animals (whether Merinos, South 

 Downs, Long-wools of this or that designation, Short- 

 Horn cattle, &c.), to find that with his utmost pains 

 he cannot keep up either their appearance or their 

 productiveness ? His Merino sheep produce a third 

 less wool. The word of promise was kept to the ear 

 but broken to the hope. He was told with verbal 

 truthfulness that they had yielded this or that enor- 

 mous amount of wool and yolk in a year, but he was 

 not told that it was in part produced by an unnatural 

 and destructive system of forcing / that he was buy- 

 ing a spent hot-bed, capable under no circumstances 

 of another such yield, and soon to become worthless. 



If the sheep breeder has as good a right as the horse 

 breeder to " fit his animals for sale," it would be an 

 insult to common morality and common decency to 

 claim that either of them has the right purposely and 

 materially to impair the constitution and value of his 

 animals, to obtain a readier sale and a higher price 

 than neighbors who do not resort to such swindling 

 tricks. The only pretence of justification is the old 

 one : " If my neighbor does so, I must or sell nothing." 

 If this excuse is valid, then every man has a right to 

 steal to keep up with thievish neighbors ! 



Fortunately the practice is comparatively new and 

 limited in our country, so far as regards the American 

 Merino sheep. If leading breeders will rigorously 

 eschew and brand it with their outspoken condemna- 

 tion, it will soon disappear. If they will not, at least 

 the buyer has a patent duty in the premises, and that 



