396 SHEEP INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES 



tious rivals. The ten years from 1850 to 1860 witnessed the almost 

 complete extirpation of the Saxon Merino from the flne-wooled sheep 

 husbandry of the State and the introduction of the French Merino| 

 The ten years from 1860 to 1870 saw the disappearance of the French 

 Merino. 



Causes, too, now operated against the Spanish or American Merind 

 and in favor of long and middle wooled sheep, in which there was J 

 great increase. The great development of the worsted manufacture! 

 from 1862, the decline in the price of fine wool, the scarcity and com-: 

 paratively high price of combing wools, combined with the greatly 

 increased demand for mutton in large cities, rendered the long- wooled 

 sheep more profitable, and induced many flock-owners to put their 

 Merino ewes to long-wooled rams, preferably the Cotswolds, it being 

 considered, in fact, folly to use any other. This caused the Cotswold to 

 be largely introduced, and in nearly every county of the State this or 

 other coarse-wooled breeds had almost supplanted the fine-wooled 

 Merino by 1870. In this year A. C. Brundage crossed 120 Merino ewes 

 with Cotswold rams very successfully. The average weight of his Me- 

 rino ewes was 80 pounds 5 the weight of the Cotswold ram at two years 

 was 200 pounds. Several of the lambs at six months old weighed over 

 90 pounds each, and the fleece shorn from them in the following season 

 brought more in the market than Merino fleece. 



Some notes in the progress of the coarse and middle wooled sheep can 

 be given. In 1850 the Southdowns, in Ontario County, were found not 

 only profitable for wool-raising but their superior mutton caused many 

 of them to be raised for the Eastern markets. In 1853 John E. Chap- 

 man, Madison County, imported a fine lot of Lincolnshire sheep from 

 the best English flocks. Their fleeces averaged over 11 pounds each. 

 In 1854 Mr. Hallock, of Milton, imported, through Col. Ware, of Vir- 

 ginia, some Cotswold sheep from the best improved flocks. Two of the 

 ewes had drawn first prizes at the Koyal Agricultural show. These 

 ewes were large, superbly formed, and averaged 10 pounds fine, soft 

 wool. The rams weighed nearly 300 pounds. One of them at two years 

 old sheared 18 J pounds ; another 17 J pounds. They had fine heads and 

 limbs, deep, full briskets, great breadth and length of body, and well 

 taken up in the belly. At the sale of Col. Lewis J. Morris' Southdowns 

 in July, 1856, the ewes averaged about $150 each, and an imported ram 

 brought $400. 



The Cheviot sheep, introduced into Delaware County in 1838 and 

 again in 1842, were quite widely extended over the southern central 

 counties, particularly in Otsego County, where fine breeding flocks still 

 exist. These sheep were very hardy, bearing exposure to wet better 

 than the long-wool breeds, on account of the closeness of the wool upon 

 the back and the hardiness of their constitution. Their breeders claimed 

 that they were quiet in disposition and easily fenced and controlled. 



