EAST OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 



87 



ewe was sold for $25. A lamb of this breed, raised near Philadelphia, 

 when 4 months old weighed 94 pounds. 



Among the sheep shown at the Pittsfield fair, Massachusetts, June 

 6, 1810, by Samuel H. Wheeler, of Lanesboro, were two half-blood 

 Merino and Irish ewes, whose fleeces weighed 7 pounds 14 ounces and 

 7 pounds 8 ounces. 



While these sheep were few in numbers in Virginia, and none fur- 

 ther south, and of comparative rarity in New England and New York, 

 they were known in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, particularly in the 

 vicinity of Philadelphia, and principally in Gloucester County, of the 

 former, and at Westchester, in the latter State. Among the breeders 

 at Westchester were C. & E. Jeffries, who imported an Irish ram about 

 1807. In March, 1812, Francis Hitchman killed seven of these sheep 

 that he had raised from Jeffries 7 ram and the common sheep of the 

 country. The weights of these sheep are given: 



In October, 1812, seven Irish sheep were killed in Gloucester County, 

 whose aggregate weight was 1,297 pounds, or an average of 186 pounds 

 11 ounces, one of the seven weighing 201 pounds. That weight was ex- 

 ceeded in November, 1812, when three were sold in the Philadelphia 

 market weighing, respectively, 197, 200J, and 205 pounds live weight. 



NEW LEICESTER SHEEP. 



The old Leicester sheep were known in Virginia at an early day, if 

 they did not, indeed, form the foundation of most of her flocks. Previous 

 to the war of the Eevolution some individuals of the Bakewell improved 

 or New Leicester sheep were brought into the colonies, principally into 

 New Jersey and Virginia, but they had no general effect upon the sheep 

 husbandry of that day, and at the close of the war the blood had run 

 out. The stringent English laws against the exportation of sheep from 

 the British Isles prevented the American agriculturist from participat- 

 ing in the great improvement made in the English sheep from 1750 to 

 1810, yet, under some difficulties and at much risk, these laws were 

 broken and evaded, and cunning or enterprising sea captains and 

 others smuggled sheep out of British ports and landed them in America. 

 Washington, as it appears, had some descendants of the smuggled 

 stock, particularly, as he says, of the Bakewell (Leicester) breed. The 

 New Leicester was also sparingly known in the vicinity of Philadel- 



