No. 4.] SHEEP HUSBANDRY. 141 



which unfortunately I have not with me, which show very 

 surprising results from the sheep fed on rape ; and the 

 growth that he made upon lambs and sheep from New Bruns- 

 wick and the eastern Province of Ontario almost passes 

 belief ; but the figures are given with the assurance that they 

 are absolutely correct. 



The Chairman. Will Colonel Needham kindly give us 

 some account of his dealings with sheep in former years? 

 I think he took a celebrated flock across the water. 



Hon. Daniel Needham (of Groton). I will occupy a 

 brief moment. This is a subject which has always been of 

 great interest to me. I had something of a flock of sheep 

 in Vermont for quite a number of years. I had the old Con- 

 sul Jarvis sheep, which he sent to this country as early as 

 1810 or 1811. The bucks were sold in New York at that 

 time for about $1,000 apiece; the ewes brought from $100 

 to $150 and $200. The sheep which I took to Europe, 

 to which Mr. Grinnell alluded in his address this morning, 

 were the Spanish Merino ; that is, they were the descendants 

 of the sheep which were imported by Consul Jarvis. Mr. 

 George Campbell of Vermont had travelled with American 

 breeders throughout Europe on two different occasions pre- 

 vious to 1863, when those sheep were exhibited at the Ham- 

 burg International Exhibition ; and he was satisfied that it 

 did not belong to Germany that she should have the exclusive 

 right to claim the production of blooded Merino sheep ; that 

 as good sheep could be found in the United States as could 

 be found there ; and he was confident that he had as good 

 sheep on his farm as he saw in Spain, in Saxony or 

 Germany. In 1863, as very likely many of you may 

 remember, I was appointed a commissioner from Vermont 

 to go to the International Exhibition at Hamburg, to which 

 the United States was invited to send sheep. The great 

 interest of Vermont in that exhibition was in connection 

 with the breeding of sheep, and George Campbell was the 

 only man in Vermont or in the United States who dared 

 to venture on the sending of Merino sheep to that exhi- 

 bition. He sent twelve, and I went over in the same 

 ship that carried the sheep and the shepherd, and in which 

 Mr. Campbell was also a passenger. I remember that there 



