EAST OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 691 



there carried on. The sheep shift for themselves and the owner's only 

 trouble and expense are in shearing them. There are flocks ranging 

 from 500 to 10,000 each. One in Jackson County, owned by a Mrs. 

 Carpenter, had its foundation in 1870 on 7 sheep. The increase to 1890 

 was 4,000, and it is stated that none were purchased or otherwise 

 added to the flock except by the natural increase. There is a good 

 profit derived from this flock, the clip in some years selling for $4,000. 

 Most of those engaged in the industry in west Florida make money, 

 realizing a handsome profit each year from the sale of wool and from 

 the increase of the flock. 



The sheep of west Florida and of the northern tier of counties are 

 those common to the southern parts of Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, 

 and Louisiana, known as the " piney woods," and from which they derive 

 the name of the " piney woods " sheep. They are the scrub sheep of 

 the Gulf coast, of whose origin and history nothing is definitely known. 

 In general characteristics of form and fleece they suggest a Merino 

 origin, and a plausible theory is advanced and sustained by reasoaable 

 arguments that they are the pure and unmixed, though deteriorated 

 descendants of the Merinos brought to Florida by the Spanish adven- 

 turers in 1565 and subsequent years down to the cession of the country 

 to the United States in 1821. Records, however, are deficient, but the 

 fact that sheep were brought into the country by the Spaniards, and that 

 these " piney woods " sheep in wool and form are of a distinct Merino 

 character, leads to the belief that the flocks of the early Spanish colo- 

 nists were the direct ancestors of the " sheep which have so long led a 

 semiwild life in the piney woods." Mr. R. M. Bell, an agent of the 

 IT. S. Department of Agriculture, who made an extended observation of 

 these sheep, and whose experience as a Merino breeder gives weight to 

 his opinion, believes that these sheep introduced by the colonists were 

 of the best Merino blood, and in a published statement refers to their 

 piney woods descendants as " a semiwild, hardy, valuable breed that 

 within the memory of man have had no attempt at improvement of any 

 sort." 



Commenting on this statement Prof. J. P. Stelle, agricultural editor 

 of the Mobile Register, thus writes in the Florida Agriculturist : 



Mr. Bell wants to know where these sheep came from originally, and suggests that 

 the indications are so strongly Merino that he is led to conclude that the Spaniards, 

 who introduced the industries into Florida, must have introduced Merino sheep of 

 the best blood from the mother country. 



The breed of sheep referred to is evidently the same as we have in the pine 

 belt all along the Gulf coast through Alabama and Mississippi. To class them as 

 semiwild is not exactly correct, for they are naturally the tamest sheep I ever saw, 

 particularly when all the attendant circumstances are considered. They run on the 

 wild range and often do not see a human being for months in a stretch, yet when one 

 does come upon them they exhibit no fear or timidity, not near so much as is usually 

 shown by sheep in a pasture where they are visited daily. 



For twenty years I have been making a careful study of these sheep. I have 

 hunted up all the old records accessible, bat none of these have thrown any light on 



