The Shepherds^ Guide* 19 



in, especially for the gentleman farmer, who wish- 

 es to confine his attention to a single object, which 

 he can manage with less labour, more profit, and 

 more improvement to his soil than any other : 

 nor any great foresight to predict that it is a grow- 

 ing business, which a v^ery few years must ren- 

 der much more profitable than it is at present. 



The Merino not only preserves his unrivalled 

 excellence in every country to which he has been 

 introduced, but he communicates them in a sur- 

 prizing degree to his descendants, of all the va- 

 rious breeds with which he has been crossed. Of 

 the truth of this most important fact our own ex- 

 perience has been sufficient to convince us ; but it 

 has been tried with so much more precision, and 

 established by so many and more accurate experi- 

 ments of the French and English agriculturalists, 

 that the best proofs are to be derived from them. 



Mr. Laysterie observes, that the first cross im- 

 proves the wool to one half of that of the ram ; 

 that the progeny gives more, as well as finer wool 

 than the dam, and that the skin already begins to 

 assume the rosy hue : that the second cross con- 

 firms and improves all this, and that the third 

 and fourth crosses leave little or nothing to be de- 

 sired in quantity and quality of the wool, or in 

 similarity of form ; none but a very accurate ob- 

 server being able to see the difference. 



Dr. Parry in England, Mr. Livingston in this 

 country, and every other practical writer on the 



