No. 4.] SHEEP HUSBANDRY. 113 



which to make such fine goods as were necessary. The atten- 

 tion of our statesmen was early directed to supply this 

 deficiency, and they wisely looked to the Merinos of Spain 

 to accomplish it ; but it was with the greatest difficulty that 

 the Spanish Government could be persuaded to allow any of 

 them to be exported. 



The first important importation of these was made by Col . 

 David Humphreys of Connecticut, then United States Minis- 

 ter to Spain, who brought a flock of about one hundred to 

 his farm in Derby, Connecticut. These increased to such 

 an extent that he made at his mill in 1807 several hundred 

 yards of fine cloth. In 1809 President Madison was inducted 

 into office in the first inaugural suit of American broadcloth, 

 the coat from Colonel Humphrey's flock, the waistcoat and 

 small clothes from the flock of Mr. Livingston of New York. 

 Arthur Scholfield wove the first piece of fine broadcloth that 

 was ever made in this country from Merino wool, at Pittsfield 

 in this State. 



The most important early importation, however, was by 

 Mr. William Jarvis, American consul at Lisbon in Portugal, 

 who seized an opportunity to buy some of the finest sheep 

 in Spain, the confiscated property of some wealthy noble- 

 man, and sent to this State and to different parts of the 

 country about thirty-eight hundred fine Merinos, the most 

 and finest ever exported. These and others, distributed 

 over all the States bordering on the Atlantic coast, soon 

 changed the character of the wool and wool growing of the 

 country. 



It is not strange that we of Massachusetts should have 

 taken the lead in this industry of wool growing and wool 

 manufacturing as we did in every matter advancing the 

 material or the intellectual progress of civilization. The 

 first sheep producing the desired quality of wool for making 

 fine cloth were either landed on our shores or brought 

 directly within our borders, where they were cared for and 

 multiplied amazingly. There were then no Western States ; 

 Ohio, which has since assumed the lead in sheep raising and 

 in sheep legislation, had just received her baptismal nomina- 

 tion ; all the sheep, all the implements of manufacture, — 

 such as they were, all the men of character and industry, 

 were this side the Alleghanies. 



