SHEEP HUSBANDRY IN TEXAS. 31e 



and especially so for the manufacturer, on account of its cleanness. Per- 

 haps, after my preceding remarks, justice requires me to add that I found 

 breeders raising the very largest French sheep with undeniably legitimate 

 objects. They considered that great size desirable, and were therefore 

 (erroneously and unavailingly, in my opinion) attempting to perpetuate 

 lit without perpetuating its usual accompanying defects. 



The careful and certainly disinterested examination of many flocks, 

 which had been judiciously bred for a number of yetirs, and down to the 

 present epoch, somewhat modified, I confess, my own previous views. I 

 believe indeed, I found hardier and every way better sheep than the 

 French stock first brought into our country. I made up my mind, that 

 the prejudice against them was violent and excessive, and that by and by 

 another reaction will set in their favor, and that they will be extensively 

 used for an object which I shall treat under another head. 



THE AMERICAN MEEINO. About the same amount of fraud and de- 

 ception attended the introduction of the Spanish Merino into the United 

 States, (after Livingston, Humphreys, Jarvis, and a few other elevated 

 men had done their part,) that heralded the advent of the Saxon and 

 French varieties. Like the French, the former sunk into contempv. 

 before it received the general approbation of the country. And it en- 

 countered a far more dangerous foe than contempt, in an almost universal 

 admixture with the puny Saxons. But a remnant was fortunately kept 

 pure, and many flock-masters, after a Saxon cross, bred back to their pre- 

 vious Merino standard. 



The American Merino of the present day is a considerably heavier and 

 stronger animal than his Spanish progenitor. He has been kept in 

 smaller flocks than in Spain, better fed, (or more uniformly fed,) and 

 subjected to a more careful and intelligent system of breeding. As long 

 ago as 1841, the celebrated early importer and subsequent breeder, Hon. 

 William Jarvis, of Vermont, wrote me that " twenty-five years' experi- 

 ence satisfied him that the wool of the Spanish Merino had rather im- 

 proved " in this country ; that his own wool was better than the samples 

 received from Spain, when he purchased his imported flock. (The whole 

 of this admirable letter will be found in the N. Y. Agricultural Society's 

 Transactions, 1841, pages 320-328.) The same kind of improvement has 

 continued down to the present time, in many flocks. 



The different Spanish varieties were, as a general thin^, soon inter- 

 mingled with each other in this country, as they had been in France, so 

 that the names of Paular, Negretti, Gaudeloupe, etc., now have no mean- 

 ing, unless in a very few instances, when applied to American sheep. But 

 in point of fact, the same varieties, or somewhat analogous ones, have 

 been reproduced in our country by the systems of breeding pursued by 

 particular persons. Some men, for example, have carefully shunned 

 u oil " and "gum," and made fineness of wool the primary consideration. 

 These have substantially reproduced the Spanish Escurial, a sheep closely 

 resembling the Saxon, except in its larger size. Others have made 

 weight of fleece the primary consideration, at some sacrifice of fineness ; 

 and to this end they have bred as much oil into, and external gum upon 

 the fleece, as practicable. The extreme of these sheep become coated 

 over a few months after shearing, with a natural covering of gum of the 

 color of tar, extending about an eighth of an inch into the wool, which 

 in warm weather sticks to the hand, and in cold becomes a hard rigid 

 crust. The interior of the fleeco looks as if oil had been poured into it, 

 as it exists there not merely as a coating of each filament of wool, but 



