456 MISCELLANEOUS SUBJECTS 



dominions Karakul breeding is reported to be a growing 

 and successful industry, presented to Dr. Roque, Saenz 

 Pena, President of the Argentine Republic, a flock of 

 about twenty Karakul sheep. They were sent to an 

 estancia among the hills of Tandil in the Sierras of the 

 South of the Province of Buenos Aires, where they are 

 undergoing acclimatization before being distributed to 

 other sections of the country. So many breeds of sheep 

 do well in that country, where there is great variety of 

 soil and climate, that success may be confidently expected 

 for this latest addition to their number. 10 There will be 

 a wide scope for crossing experiments between the Argen- 

 tine Criollo, a thin, somewhat curly-coated inferior but 

 hardy breed, and the various well-established breeds of 

 British long-wools, including Lincolns. 



Perhaps the most remarkable, if not the largest, coloni- 

 zation of the Karakul breed was effected in Texas by 

 Dr. C. C. Young, who was born in the Province of 

 Bessarabia in Southern Russia, where his father and 

 grandfather bred fur-bearing sheep Tshushka, which 

 strongly resemble the Black Danadars, and where he early 

 developed a fascination for the breed and gained invalu- 

 able experience of them. In 1908 he introduced fifteen 

 pure-bred Karakuls ; about 8 guineas per head being paid 

 for ten ewes, and 10 guineas each for five rams; only 

 one ram, however, bred true to type and produced good 

 skins. The estimated cost, with travelling and other 

 expenses included, was not far short of 200 guineas per 

 head before they finally reached their destination. The 

 time occupied was fourteen months, and included nine 

 months' quarantine, first in Russia and finally at the 

 Federal Quarantine Station in New Jersey, to avoid the 

 dreaded danger of introducing surra, or some other little 

 understood Asiatic disease. Although sheep do not 

 contract surra in such a manner as to die from it, it is 

 believed that they carry the surra micro-organism, 

 Trypanosoma cvansi, in their blood and, by the medium 



10 This statement is questioned by Young, who pronounces 

 them to be all Karakul-Afghans. 



