150 SHEEP INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES 



weight of the rani's fleece was about 6 American pounds, exclusive of 

 tags and belly wool. 



It was a favorite argument with those who first opposed the general 

 introduction of the Spanish Merino that these sheep would degenerate 

 and their wool change in the new country to which they had been 

 transferred, an argument which Livingston combatted by the presenta- 

 tion of facts drawn from his own experience. While admitting the 

 fact that most of the British sheep that had, from time to time, been 

 brought into the country had deteriorated, he denied that, any inference 

 injurious to the Merino breed could be drawn from that. The British 

 sheep were the long-wooled, for no others were thought better than our 

 own. This race of sheep could only be advantageously maintained on 

 rich and luxuriant pastures and an ample supply of succulent food 

 during the winter. Experience taught that rich pastures would add to 

 the length and quality of wool on our native sheep, and that bad keeping- 

 would diminish it. Without attention to this circumstance, the long- 

 wooled sheep had been transferred from the fens and marshes of Eng- 

 land and Holland to our dry, short, sweet pastures, from which it was 

 expected that, laboring under a thick coat of long wool, and contending 

 with our summer sun, they should be able to fill their large carcasses. 

 Not having pastures adapted to their size and their habits, they could 

 not subsist but by gradually accommodating themselves to ours. This 

 necessarily occasioned a diminution, first in the quality of the wool, 

 and next in the size of their descendants; besides that, it was very 

 rare to obtain the full-bred sheep, both rams and ewes, and to preserve 

 them unmixed. If the rams were bred with our ewes their progeny would 

 soon be reduced to the size of the ewes; directly because of the mix- 

 ture, and indirectly from the ewes not being able to afford nourishment 

 to a larger stock than nature designed her to support, without the most 

 uncommon care in feeding her while she gave milk. From which facts 

 Livingston argued that it was always very injudicious to breed from 

 the females of any stock of a race inferior in size to that of the sire, 

 since they would in such case necessarily degenerate. The reverse 

 would take ylace where the ewes were larger than the stock from which 

 the rams came. The rams being abundantly nourished would, by de- 

 grees, attain the size of the dam, while they preserved the other 

 peculiarities of the sire. It was by attention to this circumstance that 

 Livingston by 1809 had already greatly improved his Merino stock in 

 size and beauty, when he had bred them in the fourth generation from 

 the finest ewes of the country; and where he bred them from imported 

 ewes he attained the same object by affording them a plentiful supply 

 of food while they nourished their young. As these imported Merino 

 ewes were themselves of the largest stock of the Merinos, he had thus 

 gradually added to the size of their progeny; and had full-bred Merinos 

 at Clermont that were larger than the common sheep of the country, 

 and his half and three quarters bred wethers were, when shorn of their 



