[131] 

 CHAPTER VIII. 



CROSS BREEDS AND GRADES. 



When it is desired to improve the standard of one's flock, 

 or to change the breed altogether, the greatest care should 

 be observed to procure rams of the breed wished, of the 

 very choicest quality, regardless of the first cost. A Merino, 

 or even a scrub sheep, may be converted into an almost 

 pure-blooded Southdown or Cotswold by judicious manage- 

 ment. A grown ram will serve from thirty to forty ewes 

 in a season, if properly managed. A good Merino ram 

 will add more than one pound of wool to the fleece of 

 every lamb got by him from a common ewe. Here 

 is 30 or 40 pounds of wool for the use of a ram for one 

 season, to say nothing of the other valuable qualities, and 

 very lamb subsequently got by him adds a pound to this 

 amount. Many a ram gets during his life 800 to 1,000 

 lambs. This gives the breeder, in addition to the wool, 

 from 800 to 1,000 half- blooded sheep, worth double their 

 dams, and ready to be made the basis of another and higher 

 stride in improvement. 



Farmers frequently experiment in breeding for their own 

 satisfaction by mixing or crossing two different varieties; 

 this is done in attempting to establish a new breed or va- 

 riety, or more often to supply some demand for a special 

 quality of wool or mutton. The results of such experi- 

 ments, if made with two varieties of thoroughbred sheep, 

 are generally disastrous; there is no uniformity in a flock 

 bred in this way, for the individuality, so to speak, of each 

 breed that it has required a long number of years to estab- 

 lish, will be lost in the cross, and neither the rams nor the 

 of this cross-bred sheep will reproduce in their off- 



