220 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



sheep of Silesia, of Hungary, of Sweden, of Denmark, of many 

 p^rts of Russia, and also, of Australia ; iji all of which places, 

 the profits of sheep husbandry are found to arise, not from 

 " artificial feeding," but from the pasturing of large tracts of 

 land for the production of wool. 



The introduction of Merinos into the United States, in small 

 numbers in 1801, and more largely in 1809, '10 and '11, was 

 the commencement of the wool-growing interest in this country. 

 The history of this introduction is too well known to need 

 repetition. They have been carried into almost every State, 

 and, either pure or mixed, constitute a very large proportion 

 of the sheep of the northern section of the Republic. Of 

 twenty-six communications addressed to L. A. Morrell, Esq., 

 the editor of the American Shepherd, fifteen are from breeders 

 of Merinos, nine Saxonies, one South Down, one Lincoln ; and 

 the communications came from Vermont, Connecticut, New 

 Hampshire, New York, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and 

 Virginia. 



The circumstances attending their arrival in this country 

 were by no means fortunate. Fabulous accounts of the profits 

 to be derived from them, excited a spirit of speculation, which 

 ended, as it usually does, in the ruin of a large proportion of 

 those who were carried away by it. The real value of the 

 animal, great as it is, was lost sight of in the attempt of interested 

 parties to give him supernatural powers for enriching every 

 one who purchased him. But long before the generation which 

 dealt with Merinos as if they were fancy stocks had passed 

 away, a fixed value was established for them as farm animals, 

 almost equal to that which had been placed upon them by the 

 speculator. 



Some of the soundest agriculturists in our country foresaw 

 this result, even when the excitement was at its height. Hon. 

 John Lowell, in an address before the Massachusetts Societ/ 

 for Promoting Agriculture, in 1818, called the attention of 

 farmers to the subject ; and, after referring to the advantages 

 which had been derived from the introduction of Merinos intd* 

 many European countries, as shown by long experience, he relates 

 the success wliich attended their breeding, in one instance, in 

 Franco, by M. Morel de Vinde : — 



