148 MERINO SHEEP 



Till 1824 the price of wool continued so low 

 that, during the intervening years, nearly all the 

 full-blood Merino flocks were broken up or care- 

 lessly bred. Then the enactment of a tariff favor- 

 ing the production of fine wool revived the pros- 

 trate industry, and unfortunately brought about 

 the introduction of the miserable Saxon Merinos, 

 large numbers of which were now imported. In 

 the breeding of these, everything having been 

 sacrificed to fineness of wool, the result was a 

 small, puny animal, bearing two, possibly three, 

 pounds of very fine, short wool. Such was the 

 craze for these unworthy favorites of the hour that 

 almost all owners of Spanish sheep crossed them 

 with the Saxon, to the serious injury of their flocks. 

 They held the foremost place in America among 

 fine-wooled sheep for fifteen or twenty years, and 

 then went out of favor, and have now quite dis- 

 appeared, I believe. 



The Spanish Merino now came to the front 

 again, and of them the descendants of the Jarvis 

 and Humphreys importation were most highly 

 esteemed. As has been mentioned, the flocks of 

 Spain had sadly deteriorated, and the American 

 sheep derived from them in their best days far sur- 

 passed them, if not their own progenitors. 



Wool-growing became the leading industry of 

 the Green Mountain State. Almost every Ver- 

 mont farmer was a shepherd, and had his half- 



