THE TUNIS 617 



three inches long, and grades quarter-blood and three-eighths comb- 

 ing. One animal may have a clear white fleece, another a prevailing 

 reddish tint, while in another reddish fibers may be generally inter- 

 spersed among the white. The young lambs when dropped are of - 

 various colors, white, red, tawny, and mottled, but this generally 

 changes to a uniform color with maturity. As a producer of wool 

 the Tunis has a fair degree of merit, although the variation in color 

 is objectionable. Tunis breeders claim that they shear from 6 

 to 12 pounds, and Professor Shaw credits them with 7! pounds 

 wool. In an address before the Philadelphia Society for Promot- 

 ing Agriculture, in 1810, Judge Peters gave the average weight of 

 the washed fleece at 5 to 5! pounds, some flocks averaging 6, 

 with individuals of pure blood yielding as high as 10 pounds, and 

 it is questionable if the breed has changed much in wool produc- 

 tion since. 



The distribution of the Tunis sheep is widespread, yet but few 

 flocks of importance exist, with Indiana the center for the breed. 

 Several good flocks are maintained in Ohio and New York. The 

 Arizona Experiment Station has found the breed well suited to 

 that section, the sheep flocking well, being good grazers, and ap- 

 parently quite resistant to heat and the sheep botfly. Some years 

 ago Charles Roundtree sold two rams and six ewes for export to 

 New Zealand. The Tunis has also been exported to South Africa 

 and Australia. The breed is perhaps especially well suited to warm 

 latitudes and for that reason should do much to improve the 

 common sheep in the Southern states, especially Florida, Georgia, 

 Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. 



The American Tunis Sheep Breeders' Association was organized 

 in Indiana in 1896 for maintaining a flock book and promoting 

 the breed, and up to 1919 has published three small flock books. 

 The first rule of the standard adopted by the association allows 

 twenty points for pedigrees extending back unbroken to Judge 

 Richard Peters's stock or to direct recent importations from Tunis. 



