148 Essay on Sheep. 



farmer to such slieep as will suit his wants, it 

 will be proper to observe here, that if a farm 

 is so circumstanced as to render it inconveni- 

 ent to keep more sheep than will suffice to 

 clothe the family and employ the leisure hours 

 of the female part of it, I would recom- 

 mend not to go beyond half-breed Merinoes, 

 Whatever may be the stock of ewes, whether 

 long or short-woolled, I can with certainty as- 

 sert, that their lambs by Merino rams of the 

 improved breed will carry heavier fleeces than 

 the parent stock on either side. If they are 

 short-woolled sheep, their fleeces will not only 

 increase in quantity, but be much improved in 

 quality: if they are long-woolled, the improve- 

 ment will be more in the quantity and less in 

 the quality. But in either case, the farmer, in 

 addition to the increase of his wool, will find 

 this essential advantage in crossing, that every 

 fleece, if carefully sorted, will contain as much 

 wool as will make clolli which no gentleman 

 farmer need be ashamed to wear, and he will 

 besides have different sorts, of inferior qualities, 

 suited to his children and domesticks; but all 

 will be more uniformly good than the wool of 

 his old flock. Even if his flock consist of quar- 

 ter-breed Merinoes, he will find an essential dif- 

 ference both in tlie quantity and quality of his 



