EAST OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 447 



While these figures show a loss as compared with 1840, they show a 

 remarkable steadiness from 1870 to 1890. The low price of wool from 

 1884 to 1887 did not materially affect sheep-husbandry, for the sheep 

 breeders of Delaware were exempt from the periodical fluctuations of 

 the wool market caused principally by the necessities of political par- 

 ties. The industry of the State rests entirely on a mutton foundation, 

 and that upon the appreciation of the people for a good article of food. 

 This stimulates improvement, and so while the flocks have not increased 

 in number or in size they have greatly improved in quality. The best 

 strains of the best breeds are sought after and the steady market encour- 

 ages close culling and good care of the flock. The flocks kept for home 

 purposes and to supply local markets are not large, consequently can 

 be carefully gone over. In these flocks, generally, a ewe is never kept 

 longer than her fourth year. The practice is much the same as that 

 followed in Xew Jersey; one- third the ewes are disposed of yearly with 

 the lambs, and the best ewe lambs reserved to fill up their places and 

 maintain the flock at the same number. This selection makes improve- 

 ment. 



MARYLAND AND THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 



Some of the earliest and most enthusiastic breeders of Merino sheep 

 were of the District of Columbia and the country adjacent thereto. 

 Prominent among these was Gen. John Mason, who owned the fine 

 estate of Aualostan Island in the Potomac, opposite Georgetown, D. 

 C. Gen. Mason was commandant of the District militia, a gentleman 

 of means and culture, and the owner of some fine farms in Maryland 

 and Virginia. He was a purchaser of a Dupont ram as early as 1808, 

 and had a seven-eighth blood Humphrey's ram in 1811. He was a pur- 

 chaser of a Yiadillo ram at the sale in Philadelphia September 5, 1810, 

 of the cargo of the Unity, shipped by William Jarvis. In the year 1811 

 he himself imported Merinos, as we have seen, and bought from the 

 importations of others a few selected from each as they were lauded, 

 and thus formed a small flock made up of thePaular, Infantado, Guada- 

 loupe, Viadillo, and Montarco sheep, known to be among the best fine- 

 wooled flocks in Spain. This stock he kept for more than twenty years 

 under his own eye, and so preserved a little colony of pure Spanish 

 blood (as his insular situation conveniently enabled him to do), uncon- 

 taminated by any other mixture. He sent out from it to his other farms 

 the stock rams, and drafted from it every year for crossing at these 

 any excesses of the number limited by the means of his small farm, 

 retaining always for the breeding stock the individuals found to" have 

 the finest and closest wool. As long as the imported sheep lived he 

 was in the habit of so marking their immediate descendants as that the 

 intermixture of the Spanish flocks mentioned could be at once ascer- 

 tained in each case. 



