FINE WOOL SHEEP HUSBANDRY. 147 



most Saxon wool, and who yet produced a heavy 

 fleece for those times highly-bred and far descended, 

 a model of beauty did not reproduce his own traits 

 very strongly in his offspring certainly not his ex- 

 ceptional fineness. And this exhibits the effects of 

 another well-settled rule, that the reproduction of ex- 

 ceptional valuable traits exceptional either to the 

 variety or family can never be counted on with con- 

 fidence. It seems to me, indeed, that they are less 

 reproductive than exceptional bad traits. Nature ap- 

 pears to have intended that the improvement of her 

 handiwork should be a high art, calling out observa 

 tion and intellect, not the bungling process which ig- 

 norance and folly are to stumble on. 



A ram of no extraordinary individual qualities is 

 sometimes found to be a remarkable sire. He who 

 obtains one of these highly valuable sires, should cling 

 to him as he would to gold, whether individually he 

 ranks in the first or second class. This "marking" 

 property is sometimes carried so far that a familiar 

 and observing eye will promptly detect its effects in a 

 strange flock, picking out every animal got by the 

 particular ram, and even picking out his descendants, 

 if bred among each other, for all subsequent genera- 

 tions. 



Present Course of Breeding in the United States. 



I shall introduce this topic with the following preg- 

 nant words from a letter recently received by me from 

 an observing manufacturer. He writes : 



" If I had time I should hesitate to attempt to an- 

 swer your interrogatories, for the reason that the in- 

 terests of wool-growers and manufacturers from pres- 



