78 SHEEP FARMING IN AMERICA 



of a large race the lamb must be nourished, both 

 before and after birth, by the smaller ewe. It will 

 grow to be of greater size than its mother, but will 

 not equal the size of its sire. Nor will it be identi- 

 cally the same as though the cross was reversed. 

 That is, supposing we are considering the Merino 

 of one of the lesser strains, and the Hampshire, the 

 natural way of crossing is to use the Hampshire ram 

 on the Merino ewe. The result is a lamb that grows 

 to be larger than its mother, and smaller than its 

 sire. 



Reversing the process, we choose a typical Merino 

 ram and mate him to a Hampshire ewe and get a 

 lamb that may never equal the ewe in stature, but 

 excels considerably its sire, and also excels the lamb 

 of identically the same blood from the Merino 

 mother. The better nourishment both before and 

 after birth causes this result. It is seen then that 

 the better the ewe the better her lamb. Neverthe- 

 less, it may happen that a class of moderately small 

 ewes may yield most profit since they consume for- 

 age about in proportion to their size, thus a flock of 

 1,000 medium-sized ewes bred to fine, strong mutton- 

 bred rams would very likely yield a better weight 

 of lambs than a flock of 800 larger ewes and consume 

 practically the same amount of feed. 



In other words, the ram is just half of the flock, 

 and by far the easier half to provide the forage for. 

 Thus the ram cannot well be too good. 



To freshen the blood of the pure Merino on the 

 range a number of infusions have been tried. The 



