62 STATES OF THE RIVER PLATE. 



Addenda I. 



A good and simple practice in refining for parties 

 ■whose means are limited — one perfectly feasible on the 

 smallest establishment- — is to commence with a good, 

 useful class of acchmatised rams, and pursue the follow- 

 ing course, say : — 



Select from the flocks a given number of the very best 

 ewes, uniform in size and class of wool. Take, for ex- 

 ample, four hundred. Purchase for these ewes, six fine 

 large suitable Mestizo rams * of more or less advanced 

 type ; each ram being calculated to give, say 11 to 12 lbs. 

 of wool, or upwards. 



The product in ewe-lambs from these 400 will be, 

 say 170, which should be separated when weaned from 

 the dams, and formed to a flock by themselves. When 

 eighteen months old, put into these three rams procured 

 from the same ' Cabana ' as the six, but of a higher strain 

 of the same blood, and of a weightier fleece. In the 

 following year there will be, from the four hundred ewe 

 flocks another 170 'Borregas' of eighteen months old, 

 which should be added to the first lot, and two or three 

 more rams, of the same type and family as the other three, 

 would be required. The next year the same process must 

 be repeated, and so on. Meanwhile this ' Borrega ' flock 

 will have produced lambs of a higher quality than them- 

 selves ; and for these a still higher type of acclimatised 



* In using the term 'Mestizo rams,' I may observe that after a few 

 generations, when one type of Merino has been crossed with another, the 

 progeny is, to all intents and purposes, ;)«rc in blood, and in some instances 

 B type is produced superior to the sires themselves. The tei-m, therefore, 

 must only be accepted as conventional when the crossing and refining has 

 been effected persistently with one and the same blood and type. 



