CHAPTER XXV 

 THE AMERICAN MERINO 



History. Importations. Merino sheep were brought to the 

 United States as early as 1793, but they did not begin to get a 

 substantial footing in this country until commercial difficulties 

 arose with England and France in 1807. In that year the Embargo 

 Act was passed and wool soon rose to one dollar per pound. This 

 started a boom for Merinos which resulted in the importation of 

 6000 to 8000 head in 1809, 1810, and 1811. Before the close of the 

 War of 1812, wool sold for two and one-half dollars per pound. 

 During the period, 1808-1813, it was no unusual thing for im- 

 ported Merino rams to sell for a thousand dollars each and ewes 

 sometimes sold for as much. Then came the Peace of Ghent (1815) 

 which reopened commerce and practically ruined the infant manu- 

 factures of the United States. The decline in value of raw wool 

 was so violent that before the close of the year 1815, pure-bred 

 Merino sheep sold for one dollar per head. According to Randall, 

 wool did not materially rally in price for nine succeeding years, and 

 during that period most of the full-blood flocks of the country were 

 broken up or adulterated in blood. 



Stephen Atwood. During those dark and discouraging years 

 one man, however, held on faithfully to his Merinos and pursued a 

 definite policy in breeding. This was Stephen Atwood, of Wood- 

 bury, Connecticut. For foundation stock, Mr. Atwood purchased a 

 six-year-old ewe in 1813 and five ewe lambs in 1810. These females 

 were descendants of the very choice sheep imported by Colonel 

 David Humphreys, of Derby, Connecticut, in 1802. All of Atwood's 

 breeding rams were also descendants of Humphrey's stock and when 

 he could no longer find pure Humphrey's blood in other flocks, he 

 resorted to his own for sires. He was a progressive breeder, pro- 

 ducing better and better sheep as years advanced, but his great 

 contribution to the evolution of the American Merino lay in the 

 fact that he preserved a pure strain of Spanish Merinos through a 

 dark period when all but a very few either crossed their Sp-anish 

 sheep with Saxony Merinos or in various ways permitted their 

 flocks to degenerate. 

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