4o6 Dr. Parry's Essay on the Nature, Produce, Origin, 



there at a much more remote period than the year i 300. I have shewn the pro- 

 bability of their having existed in that country during the dominion of the rich, 

 industrious, and luxurious Moors: and wiien we consider that, in still earlier times, 

 when Spain was under subjeciion to Rome, it contained 600 cides, exported 

 annually to the capital 10,000 pound weight of gold, and, in proportion to its 

 extent, was, probably, the richest province of that vast empire, we can hardly avoid 

 concluding, that, at some period of its dependence, it obtained from Italy, among 

 other means of enjoyment, this precious race of sheep. 



CHAPTER IV. 



Establishment, Treatment, and Produce of the Merino Breed in Sweden, Den- 

 mark, Saxony, Prussia, Silesia, Hungary, Austria, Anspach, Bayreuth, 

 JFirtemburg, Mechlenburgb, Zell, Brunswick, Baden, the Palatinate, Holland, 

 Piedmont, France, Geneva, Russia, Cape of Good Hope, New Holland, Great 

 Britain, Ireland. 



i- HE first nation in Europe which has imported, with a view to naturalize, the 

 Merino race of sheep, is Sweden. Of this country, the most northern pan is 

 burnt up, during a short summer, by a sun which, for many days, never sets ; and 

 the whole is desolated by a winter of seven or eight months, during which brandy 

 freezes, and the ground is covered with uninterrupted snow. Notwithstanding 

 these inauspicious circumstances, M. Alstroenier, in the year 1723, introduced into 

 Sweden a flock of Merino sheep, from the warm vallics of Spain. Under his 

 direcdon, the Government insntuted a school of shepherds, in 1739; and, soon 

 afterwards, granted bounties of 25 per cent, to all the venders of fine and good 

 wool. These bounties were successively reduced to 15 per cent, in the vear 1781 ; 

 and to 12 per cent, in the year 1786; and, in 1792, their object having been 

 answered, were wholly discontinued. The bounties so distributed amounted, in ail, 

 to between fifty and sixty thousand pounds sterling. 



In the year 1764, there were in Sweden 65,369 sheep of the pure breed, and 

 23)384 crossed with them so deeply as to produce fine wool. It is supposed 

 that of the former there are now at least ioo,oco, or about -^'-j- of the total number 

 of sheep in Sweden. The wool of the descendants of this primitive flock is, in 



