No. 4.] SHEEP HUSBANDRY. Ill 



These sheep possess small horns common to both male 

 and female ; they have white faces, and legs which are some- 

 what long but fine, showing a very good breast and a fine 

 leg of mutton with loins broad and deep ; wethers will fatten 

 to twenty pounds to the quarter. They are a hardy race of 

 sheep, docile, and capable of subsisting on scanty pastures ; 

 their mutton is good, and they shear six or seven pounds of 

 close wool, finer than the Downs. 



The property of the Dorsets which remarkably distin- 

 guishes them is the fecundity of the females, and their readi- 

 ness to receive the ram at any season. This, and their 

 capacity for yielding an abundant supply of milk, renders 

 them particularly desirable for raising early lambs. In 

 England they have been largely and profitably used for rais- 

 ing lambs for winter use even as early as Christmas, and 

 called " house lambs," for which in London there is a great 

 demand. The lambs are hardy, thrifty, mature early, and 

 will dress twenty-eight to thirty pounds at sixty or 

 seventy days old. Probably a cross of a South Down 

 ram on Dorset ewes would give more size and early maturity 

 with the superior nursing quality of the dam. They tend 

 strongly to twins, sometimes having triplets, and their full 

 flow of milk suffices to raise the lambs. Some sheep farmers 

 think one lamb for a ewe is better than two ; but if the ewe is a 

 good milker, and well fed, twins are profitable. Mr. Youatt 

 says, "If a farmer has feed enough and good enough, twins 

 are highly desirable." An old English couplet, written 

 before the first sheep was landed in Plymouth colony, says : — 



" Ewes yearly by twinning rich masters do make ; 

 The lambs of such twinners for breeders go take. 1 ' 



Merinos. 

 The breed of sheep, however, which in its production of 

 fine wool has been the most important in the history of the 

 world, is the Spanish Merino. Long before the Christian 

 era the finest garments worn by the nobility and wealthy 

 citizens of imperial Rome were woven from the fine wools of 

 Truditania, Andalusia and Estramadura in Spain. Subse- 

 quently the original Spanish sheep were raised and improved 

 by the Moors, who brought with them into Spain fine sheep 



