EAST OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 461 



ewe and $20 for a ram. For many years before wool was admitted free 

 of duty the value of the annual wool clip averaged $2.02 to the sheep. 

 That, with the sale of mutton to the neighbors, made the profits of the 

 flock considerable. They were never fed anything but grass and corn 

 fodder, and grazed on land which would not keep cattle or horses. 



William D. Wallach, of Culpeper, also owned a small flock, of which, 

 in June, 1859, he gave an account. His sheep cost him on an average 

 <J per head, including an imported Silesian ram and 3 Silesian ewes, 

 the former valued at $50 and the latter $20 each. Throughout the feed- 

 ing season he fed them daily an average of 2 bushels of oats to the 

 hundred head, with as much wheat straw and cut and crushed corn- 

 stalks and blades as they could eat. Sometimes cornmeal, mixed with 

 moistened wheat chaff, was substituted for oats. He housed them care- 

 fully at night in extremely cold weather and never permitted them to 

 get wet. Early in May he commenced folding the flock in the open air 

 every pleasant night, using light hurdles made of pine poles. They 

 were permitted to rest three nights only on the same spot. Previous 

 to the first night's folding clover and orchard- grass seed were sprinkled 

 where they were to lie, and the next morning a light covering of straw 

 was put upon the ground in the fold, and on that covering they rested 

 two nights more, saturating it with their urine and leaving their manure. 

 Wherever they were thus folded young clover and orchard grass grew 

 luxuriantly. 



The results were that Mr. Wallach lost but 2 per cent from his flock, 

 and was offered 33 J per cent on its original cost for the lambs of the 

 first season, which, with the manure, twice repaid their keep for the 

 year. Their fleeces averaged him 6J pounds. The Silesian ram 

 sheared 15f pounds, and some of the Spanish Merino ewes as high as 

 9 pounds unwashed wool, selling for 40 to 50 cents per pound. At 40 

 cents he realized 40 per cent the first year on the original cost of the 

 whole flock, or, on the value of the two fields on which he grazed 

 them, at $50 per acre, and the original cost of the flock together, a 

 little more than 8 per cent per annum. All the wethers and most of 

 the ewes that had lambed were found fat enough, on being sheared, for 

 the butcher. 



A not less important result was that not a single blue thistle or white 

 daisy bloom was to be seen in either field in which the flock pastured, 

 though the previous year both were overrun with those pests. This 

 was also the case with the fields of two of the nearest neighbors, who 

 had likewise each a flock of Merinos, and with those of Mr. Bradford, 

 from whom Mr. Wallach made his purchase of sheep. Several others 

 in Culpeper County had Spanish Merinos, and some full-blooded Saxony 

 Merinos were owned near Lynchburg. 



Although it was found that the Merino would thrive in every section 

 of Virginia and fitted itself alike to the mountain regions, the plains 

 of middle Virginia, and even the tide-water region, with its shorter 



