54 



American sheep were chiefly of an inferior char- 

 acter 



MERINO. In the early years of the present 

 century the American embassadorsatthe courts 

 of France, Spain and Portugal, during the in- 

 tense commotions of the Bonapartean wars, 

 purchased and shipped to the United States many 

 hundreds of Spanish Merino sheep. They were 

 of the flne-wooled varieties, named as you will 

 find in our books on sheep husbandry. Their in- 

 troduction here was hailed with great satisfac- 

 tion, and as our infant woolen manufactories 

 were then just emerging- into existence, great 

 importance was given to their propagation, not 

 only in their own purity of blood, but as valua- 

 ble crosses on our common flocks in increasing 

 and refining the qualities of their wool. From 

 those days forward to the present time the cul- 

 tivation of the better qualities of wool has been 

 the study of numerous flock-masters in various 

 parts of the United States, suitable to their rear- 

 ing, and the sheep interest now presents an im- 

 portant branch of our agricultural production 

 and wealth. The Spanish Merino has evidently 

 been much improved in its American cultivation, 

 not only through the crosses of more recent im- 

 portation by several of our enterprising Ameri- 

 cans from the royal flocks of France, Saxony 

 and Silesia, upon the earlier Merino ewes, but by 

 our own flock-masters at home, so that at this 

 day no fine-wool sheep in the world excel, and 

 few equal, the American Merinos in the heavy 

 products of their fleeces, or the size and stamina 

 of their bodies. We might examine the statis- 

 tics of their annual production aggregating mil- 

 lions of dollars in value did opportunity permit, 

 but we may rest content with the general facts 

 which have been stated and the progress we 

 have made in their cultivation, Hot only in the 

 fine wool but in the other varieties. 



THE COARSER- WOOLED MUTTON- SHEEP, so suc- 

 cessfully bred in England during the last seventy 

 years, we have for the past thirty years adopted 

 by frequent importations. They have been suc- 

 cessfully propagated in their own purity of 

 blood, and by their crosses on the common flocks 

 raised our inferior ones to a value hitherto un- 

 known in their kind. We have now the Bake- 

 well, or Leicester, the Cotswold, and Lincoln, all 

 of the most valuable long- wool varieties. We 

 have also the Southdown, the Shropshire and 

 Oxford Downs of the middle wools, abundant 

 in fleece, massive in the quantity and delicious 

 in the excellence of tneir flesh, so that Ameri- 

 cans may, within the next decade or two, be- 

 come, as they have never yet become, a partially 

 mutton- consuming people, and ship thousands 

 of dressed carcasses to Britain, as is now done 

 with our fresh beef. 



SWINE. 



In the category of other domestic animals 

 brought into our country with the early immi- 

 grants came also this animal indispensable for 

 domestic consumption, constituting an import- 

 ant item in our exports abroad. From the ear- 

 liest history, swine have been connected with 

 farm-husbandry, as well as untamed rangers of 

 the forest, in which latter condition they even 

 now exist in some of the uncultivated sections 

 of the Eastern continent. To what degree of 

 perfection, or even improvement, they were cul- 

 tivated in ancient times, history gives us little or 

 no account; but we do know that for many 

 years previous to the present century, and for 

 some years since, the common swine of the Uni- 

 ted States were inferior in the quality of their 

 flesh, ungainly in form, slow in arriving at ma- 

 turity, and repulsive in almost every phase of 

 their character as companions to our other agri- 

 cultural stock. Yet in Eastern Asia, and in por- 

 tions of Europe, perhaps for a century or more 

 past, considerable advances had been made in 

 the improvement of their domestic swine, as a 



few years after the revolutionary war, importa- 

 tions of improved animals of the kind were in- 

 troduced into our country, and among them we 

 have accounts that General Washington had 

 some of them which were sent over as a present 

 to him at Mount Vernon, from England. Early 

 in the present century, also, the East India mer- 

 chants of Massachusetts and New York imported 

 some fine specimens from China and India, which 

 were afterward considerably crossed on the 

 common stocks of our Eastern States, and much 

 improved them both in the qualities of their 

 flesh and domestic habits. Still, until within the 

 last fifty, or even forty years, the mass of our 

 farmers throughout the country, and more par- 

 ticularly in the Western States, bred and reared 

 swine of ordinary character, answering, to be 

 sure, the main requirements of consumable 

 flesh, but inferior in its high condition to that 

 now found in our markets, either for domestic 

 consumption or exportation. 



The various foreign breeds to which we are 

 indebted for our present swine improvement 

 are too numerous to mention, and their history 

 in detail, though quite interesting, is too long to 

 narrate, but the agricultural literature of our 

 several states will fully inform all inquirers of 

 their various progress and present status. As 

 an evidence of the present interest in their pro- 

 duction and improvement, an association of 

 swine-breeders has recently been formed, whose 

 headquarters are at Spring-field, 111. They have 

 issued a swine herd-book for the Berkshire 

 breed, after the style of the various cattle herd- 

 books, in which their genealogy and high excel- 

 lences are chronicled. Not that we woud exa^lt 

 this particular breed above others, perhaps 

 equally meritortous, but to signalize the enter- 

 prise of our farmers, and the magnitude of the 

 pork and lard-producing interest of our country 

 amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars an- 

 nually. The swine of the United States now con- 

 sume a great share of the product of the almost 

 illimitable corn fields of our Western and upper 

 Southern States, thus converting a great portion 

 of that valuable grain into a portable commodity, 

 which, without them, would be either a drug, 

 or an almost inconvertible staple of their agri- 

 culture. We may, in view of the progress we 

 have made in swine cultivation and improve- 

 ment, place the United States superior to that 

 of any other country in the world. 



POULTRY. 



To descend to a smaller, yet quite indispensable, 

 item of food consumption in pur households, as 

 well as ornamental accompaniments of domestic 

 life, the varieties of our poultry may well and 

 profitably be mentioned. They, too, (the turkey 

 excepted) came over with the early settlers of 

 our American colonies, and have been the inti- 

 mate associates of our people ever since. They 

 constitute an important part ot the luxury of 

 our tables, both in their flesh and eggs, the ag- 

 gregate commercial value of which, were it ac- 

 curately reckoned, amounts to millions of dol- 

 lars annually. The poultry literature of our 

 country is voluminous, both in books and vari- 

 ous agricultural periodicals, to which those in 

 search of information may readily refer. As a 

 general remark, it may suffice to say that im- 

 portations from foreign countries, of various 

 breeds of them, have been frequent and of rare 

 quality, both in the estimation of the economist 

 who propagates them for profit, as well as the 

 amateur, for the gratification of his taste in their 

 selection and exhibition. Poultry societies have 

 become numerous throughout the land, and the 

 annual exhibitions of their various specimens 

 have been marvelous iu excellence, beauty, and 

 vaiiety. The cultivation of the finer varieties 

 has arrested the attention of men and women 

 of taste, wealth and refinement to such an ex- 



