526 SHEEP INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES 



The fact is established, however, by numerous authorities, that Mr. 

 Dickinson did in the later years of his breeding largely use Saxon 

 blood, and hence the Saxon-Spanish-Merino cross became the predomi- 

 nant stock of the country through which his sheep were disseminated. 

 And Mr. Dickinson having infused into the minds of those who pur- 

 chased from him the importance of cultivating, to use his own language, 

 " transcendently fine wool," the great ambition of wool-growers was to 

 have the finest fiber, regardless in a great measure of weight of fleece. 

 Hence the stock of the country became so very much refined that many 

 flocks averaged but 2 pounds to the fleece. The French Merino was 

 then introduced to increase weight of fleece, and eventually almost all 

 the good flocks of eastern Ohio, western Pennsylvania, and West Vir- 

 ginia, originally based on the justly celebrated flocks of Wells and 

 Dickinson, had been crossed and recrossed and crossed again with 

 Saxon, and almost everything else, until it was doubted very much 

 whether in 1861 there was a pure-bred Wells and Dickinson sheep in 

 the United States or in the world. There is, however, reason to believe 

 that such a sheep does still exist. An illustration is given herewith of 

 a two-year-old Dickinson ewe that was presented to the Michigan Agri- 

 cultural College in 18G5. She weighed 75 pounds; her fleece 6 pounds 

 3 ounces. 



The reserve thoroughbred flock spoken of by Mr. James McDowell 

 must now be noticed, and the material used, as drawn from the state- 

 ment made by Adam Hildeiibrand in 1861, and by Mr. McDowell, as ] 

 published in the Dickinson Merino Sheep Register of 1888. Mr. Hil- 

 denbrand's statement appears on a preceding page. That of Mr. James 

 McDowell is to the effect that about 1807 or 1808 Thomas Eotch, a 

 Quaker, removed from Connecticut to Stark County, Ohio, taking with 

 him a small flock of .Merino sheep. They were superior sheep, and a 

 few of them were of the flock and number imported by Col. Humphreys. 

 They were accompanied to Ohio by John Hall, who testified to the sale 

 from Humphreys to Eotch. In 1809 Mr. Dickinson became the owner 

 of a few of the Humphreys sheep by purchase from Thomas Eotch, and 

 this small flock, closely guarded, was separately marked and continu- 

 ally bred within the importation of 1802, or their descendants, until 

 1831, when Adam Hildenbrand became the owner of the choice of the 

 flock. Mr. McDowell further says that Mr. Dickinson stated, in the 

 latter years of his life, that he never sold any of the ewes descended 

 from his own pure-bred flock, his sales being of ewes purehaseu 

 throughout the country, of grade or well-bred Merino flocks or those 

 descended therefrom, in which he dealt extensively, and that the culls 

 of the flock of Merinos which he kept on the shares for Samuel L. Howell 

 (the C aid well flock) were annually sold. 



These last statements must be noticed in connection with other facts 

 which seem to antagonize them. When Mr. Dickinson sold his sheep 

 to wool-growers in eastern Ohio, West Virginia, and western Pennsyl- 



