THE SHEEP 



I S3 



ancestors of the Merinos came from England, 

 for up to a certain point these sheep have char- 

 acteristics that exactly correspond with the 

 short-haired sheep of England, especially in 

 quantity and quality. There was long a keen 

 rivalry between the wools of Spain and Eng- 

 land, so that Henry II, king of England, de- 

 creed, in 1 189, that all cloth manufactured 

 from Spanish wool should be jxiblicly burned. 



In ancient times it was th 

 tom to take the sheep in great 

 flocks to summer pastu 

 on the mountains i 

 northern Spain, bring- 

 ing them back i 

 winter to their 

 southern homes. 

 This practice be- 

 came general in 

 the fifteenth cen- 

 tury as a conse- 

 quence of the 

 great wars of that 

 period, which 

 obliged the own- 

 ers of vast flocks 

 to save them from 

 the eye of the 

 enemy. Princes, 

 nobles, and con- 

 vents alone had 

 the right to make 

 these migrations. 

 As many of them 

 owned the land 



through which the flocks traveled they derived 

 a rconsiderable revenue from this privilege. 

 Stone boundaries were set up in all directions, 

 marking the broad way through which the 

 sheep might pass. The width was usually Merino sheep have now been largely replaced 

 about thirty-six yards, but in some places it by others that give more meat and remain on 

 was nearly one hundred yards. On these paths the farms. 



the flocks and their shepherds alone had the Italy, also, had flocks which migrated to 



right of way, and the latter knew well how to the Apennines and the Abruzzo from the 

 defend that right. plains of Apulia, and still has them, but they 



The great flocks, counting often eighty thou- never traveled such long distances as in Spam, 

 sand animals, were divided into bands num- The south of France also has traveling flocks 

 bering from one thousand to fifteen hundred which journey partly to the Pyrenees, but 



A Mad.^g.asc.vr Sheep 



each, in order that there might be no famine on 

 the way. Each band, or troop, was led by fi\-e 

 or six men with their dogs; the latter served 

 only to keep off the wolves, always following the 

 flock at some distance. No one had the right 

 to protect his property from the devastation 

 caused by the migrating sheep. If it pleased 

 the shepherds to camp with their flock on some 

 fertile property, the owner had to resign himself 

 to the ruin of his crops. Agriculture 

 was absolutely impossible in 

 ity of these sheep 



ards the close of 

 the eighteenth cen- 

 tiuy an edict of the 

 king of Spain gave 

 to the owners of 

 svich property the 

 right to inclose 

 their lands and 

 thus sa\'e them 

 from the depreda- 

 tions of the sheep; 

 but it was not 

 until the nine- 

 teenth century 

 that a royal de- 

 cree gave back to 

 the proprietors, 

 great and small, 

 all rights to the 

 control of their 

 land. That was 

 the enil, in Spain, 

 of the raising of Merino sheep in vast num- 

 bers. Pastures were transformed into wheat 

 fields, vineyards, and olive orchards. The great 

 migrations became a thing of the past, and the 



