14:6 FINE WOOL SHEEP HUSBANDRY. 



should be thoroughly masculine. He should be com- 

 pact and massive in every part his large scrotum 

 almost sweeping the ground. He should not have a 

 particle of a " ewe-look" about him. Even his fleece 

 should not be as fine as a ewe's fleece. He should 

 have strength to knock down an ox. He should have 

 undaunted courage and delight in battle fighting 

 with desperate determination until slain or acknowl- 

 edged master of the flock ! I have often seen a ram 

 that if shut in a barn would go through the side of it 

 at a single blow like a catapult. Other things being 

 equal, such are more usually, according to my experi- 

 ence, the rams which transmit their characteristics to 

 their descendants. 



But where blood and constitutional vigor are appar- 

 ently equal, there is still an undeniable difference in 

 this particular how occasioned it is impossible to say. 

 No one can pronounce confidently that he has a prime 

 sire ram until the ram has been actually tested. Un- 

 less found to produce highly excellent and highly uni- 

 form offspring, the showiest and costliest animal 

 should be promptly abandoned.* 



The wonderful ram of mine mentioned in Sheep 

 Husbandry in the South,f whose wool Dr. Emmons 

 proved, by actual admeasurement, to be finer than 



* The noblest figure of a ram I ever saw, without an exception, and 

 an animal for which the owner had paid a high price two or three 

 years before, was under my eye a short time since. After looking at 

 him, I asked to see the lambs gotten by him the preceding year. The 

 owner had none to show. He had not used him, "because, &c.," but 

 had used a ram of comparatively insignificant appearance. In the 

 face of such a fact, all the excuses in the world would not tempt a 

 sensible man to give $10 for a brute which cost over $200. 



f At page 135. 



