164 SHEEP INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES 



ageuient was due to the various important manufactures carried on in 

 his establishment, and such encouragement was given by exempting 

 "his superintendents, foremen, and apprentices, in these branches of 

 manufacture, from the poll tax and assessments, from military duty, 

 and working at highways, and his cotton and woolen establishment 

 from taxes and assessments for the term of ten years." 



The committee also thought it their duty to report that they had proof 

 that the race of Merino sheep was inferior to none in the value of the 

 carcass, or in the facility of management. They were healthful and 

 fattened easily in our climate. The superior excellence of their wool 

 was fully attested by comparison and an attentive examination of the 

 fabrics wrought from the fleeces grown in the country. 



Indeed, the well-known fact that tlie wool of the Merino breed has been for a long 

 time considered by artists and manufacturers throughout Europe as indispensable to 

 the construction of the finer woolen fabrics is in itself, in the opinion of the com- 

 mittee, incontestible evidence of its superior fineness. 



The evidence laid before the committee left no doubt that the wool ot 

 the Merino had not deteriorated. Gentlemen of the first intelligence 

 and integrity had attentively watched the progressive state of Col. 

 Humphreys' imported flock, and concurred in attesting to the facts that 

 the wool of the original stock retained all its superior value in quality 

 and quantity, and that the full-blooded progeny produced in this coun- 

 try was in no respect inferior to the stock imported from Spain. In 

 view of these facts a general suggestion was made of the importance of 

 meliorating the common breed of sheep, particularly in the article of 

 wool, by embracing the opportunities offered by Humphreys' flock of 

 crossing the blood and producing a mixed progeny, as also of preserv- 

 ing and extending the full-blooded breed to an unlimited degree. 



James Madison was inaugurated President of the United States on 

 the 4th of March, 1809, " in a full suit of cloth of American manufacture, 

 of the wool of Merinos raised in this country, his coat from the manu- 

 factory of Col. Humphreys, and his waistcoat and smallclothes from 

 that of Chancellor Livingston," presents, respectively, from those gen- 

 tlemen, whose zeal in the production of domestic woolens had received 

 fresh impulse and has found several imitators since the late restrictions 

 on the importation of British cloths. On the 10th of May following, an 

 agricultural fair was held in Georgetown, D. C., on which occasion 

 nearly all the gentlemen present wore clothing of domestic manufacture. 

 President Madison sported his inauguration suit, the coat made from 

 Merino wool of Col. Humphreys' flock, and the waistcoat and small- 

 clothes made from the wool of the Livingston flock at Clermont. At 

 the same fair " two Merino rams were exhibited, sired by 'Don Pedro,' 

 owned by Mr. Dupont, of Wilmington." 



There was thus represented at this fair, either by cloth made from 

 the wool or by live animals, three importations made by Dupont, Liv- 

 ingston, and Humphreys seven or eight years before, which, with the 



