EAST OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 285 



only evidence lie gave of a noble public spirit. It remains only to say 

 that the flock of sheep he bred was soon scattered after his death.* Mr. 

 Jarvis died October 1, 1859, and the flock was dispersed after the death 

 of his son, Maj. Charles Jarvis, December 1, 1863. 



There is no pedigree of any rams nor any line of ancestry given pre- 

 vious to 1835. The pedigree history of the Jarvis sheep begins with a 

 Jarvis ram known as Consul, bred by Jarvis about 1838, and sold by 

 him to Ward M. Lincoln, Brandon, Yt., and purchased of him by W. E. 

 Sanford, Orwell, Yt., who sold him at the New York State Fair at Pough- 

 keepsie, 1844, after breeding from him for many years. His live weight 

 was about 160 pounds. Another ram known as Stickney's Consul was 

 bred by Mr. Jarvis in 1835 and sold to Tyler Stickney, Shoreham, Yt., 

 when a teg, soon after he was weaned. He was used for a number of 

 years by Mr. Stickney and his neighbors, then sold in 1843 to G. A. 

 Austin and John Looker, Orwell, Yt., and by them to J. Thurman Eich, 

 Eichville, Yt. This ram weighed at maturity about 130 to 140 pounds, 

 and his heaviest fleece was 9 pounds 2 ounces washed wool. He was a 

 dark-coated, fine, long, thick- wooled sheep. He was the sire of Hero 

 and Fortune, celebrated sheep in their day. Another ram, Jarvis, was 

 sold to W. E. Sanford, and then, when 9 years old, was sold to Merrill 

 Bingham, Cornwall, upon whose farm he died, after having been used 

 as a stock ram by Mr. Bingham for two years. 



As originally formed and for a long time maintained, the Jarvis flock 

 was essentially Paular, that family considerably predominating in num- 

 bers, but Mr. Jarvis was induced by his Mend, Col. Shephard, to 

 breed in the contrary direction from the type of the darker colored and 

 yolkier families. The appearance of his sheep, as Dr. Henry S. Ean- 

 dall saw them about 1840, indicated that he had obliged his friend, 

 Col. Shephard, and accommodated the manufacturers by chiefly using 

 rams of his Escurial family, o: which bore a large proportion of that 

 blood. They were lighter colored than the original Spanish sheep of 

 other families, and their wool was finer. It was entirely free from har- 

 dened yolk or " gum," internally or externally, and opened on a rosy 

 skin with a style and brilliancy which resembled the Saxon. It was 

 longish, for those times, on the back and sides, but shorter on the 

 belly, and did not cover the head and legs anything like as well as 

 those parts are covered in the improved sheep of a later day. It was of 

 fair medium thickness on the best animals. The form was perhaps 

 rather more compact than that of the original Spanish sheep, but alto- 

 gether it bore a close resemblance to them. Dr. Eandall thinks that 

 prior to 1840 Mr. Jarvis had begun to breed back toward the other 

 strains of blood in his flock. At about that period small and choice 

 lots of breeding ewes were occasionally obtained from him which 

 yielded from 4 pounds to 4 pounds of washed wool per head. These 



* Register of the Vermont Merino Sheep Breeders' Association, Vol. I. 



