448 SHEEP INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES 



There are some records of Mason's sheep, as well as those of his 

 neighbors, which can be given. 



At a fair of the Columbian Agricultural Society of Georgetown, held 

 Hay 5, 1811, five candidates entered for the premium for fine-wooled 

 sheep. 



These were all of the Merino breed, and the weight of fleece is given 

 as unwashed. The premium for the best was awarded to Gen. 

 Mason's " Potomac Chief," of Humphreys breed, and the second pre- 

 mium to R. Brook's "Hopewell," a half-blood Merino ram of the 

 Dupont breed. 



On May 22, 1812, at the fifth semi-annual fair of the Columbian Agri- 

 cultural Society, held at Georgetown, D. C., a premium of $60 for the 

 best two-toothed rani lamb of the fine-wooled breed was awarded to 

 Gen. John Mason, of Analostan Island, for his full-blooded Merino ram 

 Golden Fleece, of imported father and mother, from the Spanish flock 

 of the Duke of Infantado, and $40 for the second best to Edward Lloyd, 

 of Wye, Talbot County, late governor of Maryland, for his full-blooded 

 Merino ram lamb Talbot, of imported father and mother, from the 

 Paular flock. Golden Fleece weighed 93 pounds 6 ounces ; his fleece 

 weighed 10 pounds 6 ounces ; total, 103 pounds 12 ounces. Talbot 

 weighed 123 pounds 6 ounces ; his fleece weighed 13 pounds 10 ounces; 

 total, 137 pounds. 



Other sheep exhibited showed that the Merino exceeded the long- 

 wooled breed not only in quality of wool but in quantity, and on an 

 average were little inferior in weight of carcass. It was manifest to 

 every one that Merino sheep could be brought to as great perfection in 

 States adjacent to the Potomac as in any country in the world where 

 an attempt had been made to raise or breed them. The full-blooded 

 Merino sheep, and those of the higher crosses exhibited for premium 

 and shown as specimens yeaned and raised in the country, were decid- 

 edly preferable to those imported from Spain, or any other part of 

 Europe, in almost every essential or desirably quality in size, in beauty, 

 and quantity of fleece, and not inferior in fineness of wool. 



In 1813 John Threlk eld, who, with Gen. Mason, bought an Escurial 

 ram at the sale of the Diana sheep, June, 1810, and who had Merinos 

 also of the Dupont and Humphreys blood, sheared 60 pounds of wool 

 from 4 rams and 2 ewes, and in 1814 he cut 78 pounds 8 ounces from 2 

 rams and 6 ewes. In the latter year Gen. Mason sheared -;5 pounds V& 



