EAST OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 215 



tliat the descendants of the earlier importations were better than any 

 then to be had in Spain, forbidding- it. 



From Maine to Georgia on the Atlantic coast, and into all the inte- 

 rior States and Territories east of the Mississippi, with the possible ex- 

 ception of Alabama, Indiana, and Illinois, the Merino sheep had been 

 carried by the beginning of 1815, and beyond the Mississippi it had 

 made its appearance as early as August, 1811, a St. Louis paper of that 

 time announcing that "this valuable animal is already introduced into 

 upper Louisiana, where it promises to flourish in great perfection. n 

 And from Maine to Georgia and in all the interior States advertise- 

 ments of full-bloods, half-bloods, and all degrees of purity, evinced their 

 general dissemination and the active trade in them. 



