4i6 Dr. Parry's Essay on the Nature, Produce, Origin, 



1792, he imported from Spain 3 new rams and 4 ewes. His flock, in 1802, amounted 

 to 200, which were all that the land could maintain. M. Twent every year sells the 

 sheep which he draughts. His rams' fleeces weigh, unwashed, from 10 to upwards 

 of 141b. each; and those of his bearing ewes from 6 to nearly lolb. In scouring 

 they lose half their weight. In order to prove the fineness of his wool, he placed 

 on a piece of black cloth nine specimens of the wool of his young rams by the side 

 of the best specimens of superfine Spanish wool which he could procure from a 

 clothier; and having numbered them, and marked the origin of each specimen, so 

 as to correspond with a number in a sealed paper, he sent them to a merchant who 

 bought his wool, requesting him to note those which he thought best. The 

 numbers in the sealed paper being compared with the clothier's marks, it was found 

 that five of M. Twent's specimens had been judged superior to the superfine 

 Spanish. 



In the year 1792, M. Cuperus procured from Spain some Merinos, which 

 are kept on the moist and fertile meadows near Ley den. His crosses of the 

 native breeds were, in 1802, nearly equal to the unmixed Spaniards in fineness of 

 fleece. 



From these sheep have descended several mixed breeds, in the possession of 

 M. Twent, M. Kops, near Harlem, and M. Collot, near the Hague. They have 

 been principally derived from Texel and Friesland ewes; both of which are long. 

 wooUed, large sheep, and the latter, probably, the largest in Europe. M. Kops had, 

 in 1802, reached as far as the third generation; and the wool of the mixed race of 

 M. Twent was even superior in fineness to that of the pure Merino. 



M. Twent's sheep feed, during the summer, either on the downs, where the 

 herbage is very short and poor, or in the low lands, which are either meadow or 

 arable, or woods of alder, oak, or elm ; all intersected by ditches, which receive 

 the water that drains from the soil. They are also fed on the highways. During 

 the extreme heat of the day they are housed ; and are never suffered to remain 

 abroad during the night. To this precaution, rather than to a cause assigned by 

 M. Twent, it is possibly owing that the Merino race seems to contract from the 

 moist soil of Holland neither the rot, nor any other disease. We are told that 

 these sheep are less subject to the former malady than those of Friesland and the 

 Texel. 



During the winter they are driven out to feed every day, except when the 



