The Shepherds^ Guide, 13 



has found the Merino hi this respect to equal, if 

 not exceed any short-woolled sheep in England, 

 especially as it regards fattening at an early age ; 

 his mixed Merinos fattening well at the age of 18 

 months ; a most valuable point as it respects pro- 

 fit, because it gives quick returns, and puts it in 

 our power to derive a profit from the butcher and 

 clothier from the same animal, and from the same 

 quantity of pasture, in the same year. 



In constitution, the Merino is a peculiarly har- 

 dy sheep, of which no better proof can be given 

 than the treatment he is compelled to bear in 

 Spain, where every spring he is driven a journey 

 of four or five hundred miles, from the plains of 

 the south to the mountains of the north, and 

 back again in the autumn ; and that at the rate of 

 80 or 100 miles per week, and the journey in the 

 spring, when the lambs are not above four months 

 old. Few sheep but the Merino could bear such 

 treatment, by which, in the opinion of the best agri- 

 culturalists, confirmed now by long experience, 

 the form of the animal is much hurt, without any 

 improvement to his wool ; and as Lord Somer- 

 ville expresses it, he is really hunted into deform- 

 ity. 



He bears all climates, from New-Holland in the 

 34th degree of south latitude, to Sweden, in 60" 

 north ; and in all, not only without any deprecia- 

 tion in the qualities of his form and fleece, but 

 under proper management, with a manifest im- 



B 



