SHEEP. 1025 



be trained to penetrate beneath these disguises. It is an error 

 to suppose that a buff-colored staple is necessary in the ram as an 

 indication of vigor. The greatest hardiness is oftener associated 

 with white wool. It is more important to seek an animal pos- 

 sessing heat and vitality enough to keep the yolk semi-liquid, 

 glistening, and well-diffused along the fiber. Next after consti- 

 tution it is important, above all, to have a good-stapled, deep- 

 grown fleece, well crimped to the very end and free from 

 black-tops. 



It is also erroneous to suppose that a small amount of native 

 blood ought to be retained in the veins as a conservator of hard- 

 iness and of the milking and nursing aptitudes in the Merino. 

 As between an average full blood and a grade treated alike, and 

 from ancestors also treated alike, the full-blood is the better 

 every way. It not only reproduces itself with more certainty, 

 but also bears wool more nearly equal in length wherever any 

 grows at all, of a greater number of fibers to the square inch. 

 Nor does it fall behind in constitutional force as mutton or as 

 a nurse. The full-blood has become the object of wrong notions 

 and prejudice simply from the false and pampering methods to 

 which it has been subjected. 



As between systematic exposure to all kinds of weather, 

 winter and summer, and too close housing in an atmosphere 

 vitiated by animal exhalations and ammonia escaping from the 

 manure, the former is unquestionably to be preferred, even for 

 breeding ewes. But this is no argument against judicious yard- 

 ing and housing. The retention of the yolk in the fleece is the 

 least worthy of the motives presented for this practice. The 

 swift, drenching rains of the fickle American climate, quickly 

 followed by biting cold winds, furnish the true reason for hous- 

 ing. The very argument which many present for leaving the 

 flocks exposed to the storms that they are protected by thick 

 fleeces which prevent the water from reaching the skin for a long 

 time makes in favor of housing, because animals covered only 

 with hair dry off sooner than sheep. An average fleece will 

 absorb and carry from seven to ten pounds of water ; and the 

 sudden conversion of a considerable portion of this into ice in 



65 



