412 



SHEEP INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES 



Table showing record of the New York State Breeders' Association for 1890 Continued. 



EWES. 



* L. P. Clark, breeder. 



It is freely acknowledged by the New York breeders that in their 

 efforts to secure the largest fleeces many of them have paid too little 

 attention to character and quality, and that the animal shearings show 

 that sheep in many flocks have been well nigh fleeced to death. 



From 1883 to the present time there has been an increasing interest 

 in breeding a mutton Merino, and while it is not expected that such a 

 sheep can supplant the Hampshire and Shropshire, it is expected that 

 with the elimination of the ruffles and oil of the Merino, a tolerable 

 mutton sheep would result. But the American people will not accept 

 and use a tolerable or an inferior meat if a superior article can be 

 obtained, and their demand for the juicy Down mutton stimulates the 

 cultivation of the Southdown, the Hampshire, and the Shropshire, and 

 discourages the efforts of those who would convert the Merino into a 

 mutton sheep. The Merino, since 1883, has not held its own in New 

 York. Large flocks have been reduced, and some have been sold and 

 disappeared. There has been a decline in the number of the fine-wool 

 sheep, and also in the coarse- wooled. This decline reached its lowest 

 point in 1886, when mutton was a drug in the city markets and wool 

 had touched bottom prices. But the temporary rise of wool in the 

 spring of 1887 and a better demand for mutton came just in time to 

 save thousands of sheep from slaughter, and held out an inducement to 

 many farmers to start small flocks to supply markets with mutton and 

 early lambs. Merino flocks gave way to mutton ones, and regular 

 Atwood Merinos were sold in lots at $5 per head, and their places on 

 the farm taken by sheep purchased in the West and fed through the 

 winter for mutton. Thousands of such sheep are yearly brought into 

 the central and western counties of the State. Formerly none but 

 mature wethers were selected for this purpose, but the number of 

 yearlings and lambs demanded for this industry is increasing. The 

 revival of the sheep husbandry of New York continues, and is likely to 

 continue as long as the appreciation of mutton as an article of food 

 grows upon the people. 



