

LAST 01-' THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 459 



always uniformly produce this result. And it was easier then to get 

 the Saxon than the Spanish Merino fine enough for the purpose. Or a 

 tloek could be bred up from Saxon ewes and a Spanish Merino ram. The 

 objection to both courses was the same, though not equal to that ex- 

 isting against breeding the full-blooded Saxons, viz., the production of 

 a feeble and a poor nursing sheep. The latter evil, especially, clung for 

 generations to these cross-bred animals, and unless Saxons were se- 

 lected not possessing the characteristic faults of the variety the cross- 

 breds would be found inferior to pure-blood Spanish Merinos in many 

 other and essential particulars, although the fleece might be all that 

 was desired. There was another point where the pure-blood Spanish 

 Merino possessed a marked advantage. Few southern wool-growers 

 would commence their flocks exclusively with high-bred animals of any 

 kind. With a few of them to breed rams from and to gradually grow 

 up a full-blood flock, they would mainly depend upon grading up the 

 common sheep of the country. With the long-legged, bare-bellied, 

 open-wooled sheep, common in the South, as it once was in the North, 

 the Saxon made an indifferent cross. Their faults ran too much in the 

 same direction, in all save the fineness of wool, for, however good its shape, 

 the wool of the Saxon was comparatively short and open. It therefore 

 shortened the wool of the common sheep without adding much or any to 

 its thickness, and thus the fleece remained a light one. Precisely the 

 reverse of all this was the result from a cross between the Spanish Me 

 rino and the common sheep. The wool was but little shortened, unless 

 the staple of the common sheep was very long; it was essentially thick- 

 ened; it extended over the belly; the fleece was greatly increased in 

 weight; the sheep rendered more compact and stocky, and brought 

 nearer the ground. Even the first cross, though the fleece be somewhat 

 uneven, would be found a prime sheep for the wants of ordinary farmers, 

 and among these it was a decided favorite over the whole Northern 

 States, a majority preferring it over any other kind or variety of sheep. 

 Two or three proper Spanish Merino crosses raises it to the rank of a 

 first-rate wool-growing sheep, scarcely inferior to the full-blood Spanish 

 Merino in anything, save that it does not transmit its good qualities 

 with quite so much certainty to its offspring.* 



Having thus indicated the proper sheep for wool-growing in the 

 South, Mr. Randall further proceeded to indicate the points of excel- 

 lence of the Spanish Merino and its grades, the management, washing, 

 shearing, care of wool, diseases to which the sheep were liable and their 

 remedies, in fact everything pertaining to the subject, embracing the 

 best work on American sheep husbandry up to that date. 



The effect of the work was immediately perceptible in a revival of 

 wool growing in many sections of the South, particularly in Virginia. 

 The material for forming new flocks was plenty and cheap. From the 

 passage of the tariff of 1846 there had been a panic among the wool- 



" Sheep husbandry in the South." Henry S. Randall. 



