NEGEETTE MERINO SHEEP. 367 



to a hot climate. The Eambouillet has his claims, but is not the 

 sheep for South Africa. The Negrette Merino, or Sturgeon 

 Merino, as he is called in the colony, has long been introduced 

 into the Australian flocks, and is not unknown in the Cape and 

 Natal. One of these rams from the Sturgeon flock was recently 

 purchased by Messrs. Allport and Co., of Beaufort West, which 

 is described as a splendid animal, with a heavy fleece of very 

 fine close wool, is two years and four months old, and his live 

 weight when he left England was 1891b. net. Mr. F. J. 

 Allport, in a letter in the same paper, which bears date August 

 20, 1886, entitled " Our Wool, and Breed of Merino Sheep," 

 after doing full justice to the advantages which have followed 

 the use of Eambouillet rams in the increase of size and weight 

 of wool, contends they have been used too freely, and the 

 result has been a tendency to coarseness in the wool. After 

 pointing out the advantage that must follow the introduction of 

 first-class Australian rams, such as those bred by Sir S. Wilson, 

 at Erceldoun, but which would cost 50 guineas each delivered in 

 the colony, he says : " Then we have the English Sturgeon Rarrif 

 bred by Messrs. Sturgeon and Sons, of Grays, Essex, one 

 of the most valuable breeds of long-wooUed sheep in the world, 

 and great favourites of mine. They say you may find finer fibre 

 than these, you may possibly find more wool, but on no other 

 sheep will you find so great a quantity and so fine a quality com- 

 bined. When fat they attain a weight, if first class, of 160 to 

 1701b. live weight when three years old, are very powerfully 

 built, with good constitutions, short on the leg, and have a very 

 fine elastic staple of wool, long, soft, and strong, and shear a 

 fleece of about 201b. in the grease of a twelve months' growth. I 

 lost a splendid imported ram of this breed, which died suddenly 

 on the 4th instant from internal inflammation. He arrived in 

 the colony too late to be of any service last season. His live 

 weight was 1741b., and his skin when dried, after his death, 

 weighed 26f lb. ; the wool being a fourteen months' growth, three 

 inches long, with a stretch up to 4| inches of beautiful fine wool, 

 worth Is. per lb. in England. It was a great loss to myself, as 

 well as to the district of Beaufort, but I have such confidence in 

 the purity and value of this blood that I at once ordered another 

 ^f the same high standard, costing 60 guineas in England, which 



