314 SHEEP HUSBANDRY IN TEXAS. 



rather wears the appearance of a mass of oil, with filaments of wool 

 growing out through it. 



Some breeders take a middle course, cultivating the oil, but avoiding 

 ;he gum. Some cultivate a medium share of both ; and so on. 



The well-bred American Merino is probably now the densest and 

 heaviest-fleeced sheep of its size in the world, without the help of any 

 extraneous circumstances ; but when you read of the enormous fleeces 

 you sometimes do, (whether they belong to H. S. K. or A. B. C.,) it is 

 time that you, and all other intelligent men, understand that this enor- 

 mous extra weight is made up of oil and gum. In the first place, wool 

 of this character can not, at best, be well washed on the back of the 

 sheep. In the second, many breeders do not desire to so wash it ; they 

 choose to leave these heavy animal excretions in the wool, and they le*t 

 their flocks run long enough between washing and shearing, to restore all 

 that has been washed away. In fact, washing with them, is little better 

 than a name, a pretence, to prevent the buyer from deducting the usual 

 one-third from the gross weight, as on unwashed wool. Then, further to 

 mislead the purchaser, they do up each fleece in two parts claiming that 

 if that personage sees fit to judge the wool solely by weight of fleece, 

 instead of quality and condition, (as he often does,) it is but a fair retalia- 

 tion, a warrantable " spoiling of the Philistines," to take a course which 

 will compel him to judge the article by legitimate tests, or to suifer the con- 

 sequences. (That is to say, they assume that if the buyer is a blockhead, 

 or screw, it is right to cheat him, if it can be done by silence.) 



These excessively oily and gummy sheep are rather " the rage " at 

 present in the North. There are two reasons for it. The wool-buyer 

 has obstinately refused to make any proportionate difference in the price- 

 paid for their wool and that paid for cleaner wools. He will usually pay 

 within three or four cents per pound, as much for the first as for the last, 

 when the "greasy" wool weighs two pounds most to the fleece, when it 

 costs no more to raise it, and when it will lose twenty-five per cent, more in 

 cleansing. The manufacturers could have corrected this evil, if they had 

 chosen to do so ; and a class of sham-hating men have continued to breed 

 clean wools, expecting them ultimately to do justice in the matter. But 

 indifference, or the temptation to force these breeders to sell (or sacrifice) 

 their beautiful clips at two or three pennies above the price of " greasy " 

 wool, has generally triumphed over all more manly considerations, though 

 in regions where clean wools are extensively grown, and where the breed- 

 ers can and will stand by each other, they have fared better. 



The other reason for the popularity of excessively oily and gummy 

 sheep, exists in the fact that they generally sell better to those beginners 

 who are willing to pay breeders' prices. The first thing in a variety or 

 breed, which attracts the eye of a novice, is its salient peculiarities 

 whether they involve valuable characteristics or the contrary; and they 

 are very apt to become his standards of purity of blood arid individual 

 excellence, until experience has taught him better. The Merino, com- 

 pared with others, is an oily and gummy sheep, and " argal," the more 

 oil and gum he possesses, the " more Merino " is he to the novice. The 

 same remarks apply to " throatiness " large corrugations or folds of pen- 

 dulous skin about the neck or throat, and similar folds on other parts of 

 the body. 



Breeders defer more or less to the tastes of buyers, and thus more 

 " grease and wrinkles " are prbduced than would otherwise be. A pet* 

 tier personage your nomadic ram peddler carries his complaisance still 



