68 IMPROVEMENT Of THE BREEDS. 



bad one, have continued from time to time, to occupy 

 tiie attention of patriotic individuals. As much ap- 

 pears to have been known about sheep two thousand 

 years ago as at present, so true is it, that nothing new 

 is to be met with ; yet, that does not rob our modern 

 improvers of their merits, for though they deserve 

 little as inventors^ they are to be admired for that 

 strength of mind, and determined perseverance, which 

 enabled them to rouse their fellows from their lethargy, 

 and compel them to become in turn, benefactors of 

 their country, and themselves. The signs of a good 

 ram are concisely laid down by Varro, by Virgil in his 

 third Georgic, and by Columella ; and, though the 

 Spanish nobility were looked upon with wonder, (till 

 eclipsed by our own extravagance,) in giving two hun- 

 dred ducats, or fifty pounds for a ram; yet Strabo 

 assures us, that in his day (under Tiberius), they gave 

 more than three times that sum for one of the breed of 

 the Coraxi, a Pontic nation, believed to have the finest 

 fleece in the world. 



The greatest recorded improvers of the sheep in 

 ancient times were Lucius Columella, and his uncle 

 Marcus Columella, Spaniards of distinction, who 

 removed to Rome in the reign of Tiberius, and made 

 agriculture the study and business of their lives. The 

 former commenced his celebrated treatise on husbandry 

 during the reigns of Tiberius, and Caligula, and ap- 

 pears to have finished it A. D. 35. It is a work which 

 may be read with advantage even at present, as it 

 abounds with much that is valuable, and is accessible to 

 all through its English translation.* 



♦ I allude to this, as the author of the work on Sheep, published by 



