vi ^Preface- ^ 

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rican exves produces a healthy, hardy, gentle race, which fat- 

 ten more speedily than the pure Ame7'ican blood ; do not 

 loose their wool, when shearing has been neglected beyond 

 the usual time, and do not become diseased when fat. The 

 fine quality of the wool is known to all the world; and what 

 is of great consequence, the weight oi fleece of the cross with 

 American ewes, is evidently increased, when compared with 

 the imported sheep. The same increase takes place in the 

 cross with the English sheep. It may be well to add, that 

 the wool of sheep from the Spanish cross, exhibits the most 

 evident marks of improvement ; this adds another proof to the 

 many which all parts of the world furnish,* that the prejudice 

 respecting the peculiar nature of the climate of Spain^ being 

 exclusively calculated to produce fine wool, is erroneous. 



We owe the introduction of the Barbary mountain sheep, 

 Avith broad tails, to our gallant countryman, William Eaton, 

 who, when Consul at Tunis, sent them in an armed vessel in 

 the service of the United States, commanded by Henry Ged' 

 des, to Timothy Pickering then secretary of state, who pre- 

 sented a fine ram and ewe to the President of our society, 

 from whose disinterested zeal, this valuable breed is now 

 spreading through the State of Pennsylvania, and other States 

 in its immediate vicinity. The wool of those sheep, owing 



* Mr. Lasteyrie in an extensive tour, made with the express purpose 

 of ascertaining the fact of the congeniality of various climates to fine wool, 

 found that the climate of Holland, though damp, does not prevent the breed 

 of the Spanish sheepTrom thriving. He saw the fourth generation of these 

 animals, bred in the country, which had as fine wool as the Spanish sheep, 

 though both the soil and the climate, were in appearance very unfavourable 

 to the constitution of those animals. In Denmai'k and Sweden, and even 

 in the most northern parts of those two countries, that breed has existed 

 without degenerating for many years. He adds that a few years since, 

 the Danish Government, sent for 300 Spanish sheep, and that only on& died 

 in the course of two years, notwithstanding a very severe cold happened the 

 vear after thev arrived. 



