24 SHEEP INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES 



MARYLAND. 



Sheep were taken to Maryland at its first settlement, of the same 

 general character as those raised in Virginia, and they had similar 

 treatment. Their flesh formed a good part of the food for the people, 

 and their wool was used in homespun manufacture. Though having 

 nearly 8,000 people, with a trade employing 140 ships in 1650, there was 

 yet no home manufacture of cloth, nor any attempt in that direction for 

 nearly fifty years after, the supplies except homespun, of which most 

 families made more or less being derived from England in return for to- 

 bacco, or from New England in exchange for grain and other provisions. 

 It would appear that wool was exchanged also, for in 1663 the colonial 

 assembly found it necessary to pass an act against its exportation, 

 and in 1682 bounties payable in tobacco were authorized for the en- 

 couragement of growing flax, hemp, and wool. Necessity turned the 

 minds of the people to manufacturing. A murrain among the stock in 

 1694-'95 cut off 25,000 neat cattle and upwards of 62,000 hogs, thus 

 diminishing their resources for trade, and at the same time there was 

 an increasing difficulty in getting supplies. These circumstances threw 

 the colonists, in a measure, upon their own resources for clothing. 

 Sheep were plentiful, and the wool was comparatively good, and two 

 years later, in 1697, an effort was made in the counties of Dorchester 

 and Somerset to introduce the woolen and linen manufacture, but it 

 succeeded only in attracting the reproachful attention of the EDglish 

 Government and was soon abandoned, the colonial assemblies pleading 

 in excuse of the weavers that they were driven to their tasks " by ab- 

 solute necessity." In 1750 the sheep of Maryland were nearly all of 

 one breed, of which not one could be found in 1800. They were light 

 made and clear boned, giving at four and five years old the best flavored 

 mutton, dark, rich, and juicy. The wool was in but moderate quanti- 

 ties, yet of good quality. They were called rat-tailed sheep, from the 

 tail being small and round. 



NEW YORK. 



The first sheep imported into New York or the New Netherlands were 

 brought from Holland by the Dutch West India Company in 1625, Avheii 

 the Dutch colonists were " gladdened by the arrival of two large ships 

 freighted with cattle and horses, as well as swine and sheep," but the 

 charter of 1629 forbade the colonists to manufacture any woolen fabrics ; 

 "not a web might be woven nor a shuttle thrown, on penalty of exile." 

 To impair the monopoly of the Dutch weavers at Amsterdam was pun- 

 ishable with severe and heavy penalties. Under these circumstances 

 there was no encouragement for raising sheep. 



Sheep were brought from Zealand and Texel to Eensselaerswyck in 

 1630. But little progress was made in sheep-raising on the Hudson for 

 many years, in consequence of the ravages committed by dogs and 



