44 



FINE WOOLED SHEEP. 



The Committee on Fine Wooled Sheep report : — 

 There was but one entry for the premium offered for this 

 class of sheep, and that was a full-blooded Spanish Merino Buck 

 Lamb, six months old, offered by Samuel Moody, Jr., of West 

 Newbury. This animal, strictly considered, does not come 

 under either class for which the premiums were offered ; but 

 inasmuch as it still remains an unsettled question among the 

 farmers of Essex, whether it is most profitable to raise more 

 fine wool and less mutton ; or, less coarse wool and more mut- 

 ton. And as the discussion has been carried on for several 

 years, more theoretically than practically, (for we have had no 

 full-blooded, fine wooled sheep in the county of late, by which 

 the comparison could be fairly made,) your Committee conclud- 

 ed that the Society is under obligation to Mr. Moody for the 

 trouble and expense of introducing a fine specimen of the cele- 

 brated Spanish Merino breed of sheep. It is to be hoped that 

 Mr. Moody will not spoil the experiment by allowing his lamb 

 to be used as a buck until he is sufficiently mature to propagate 

 his species without injury to himself or his progeny, which, in 

 the mind, of your Committee, will be when he is one year old- 

 er. Many a fine buck has been spoiled, and the reputation of 

 superior breeds of sheep has suffered, by the use of a lamb for 

 a buck. The temptation is great, but failure certain. 



Mr. Moody added to the interest of the show by the exhibi- 

 tion of a fall-blooded South Down ewe, sixteen years old, ap- 

 parently in the full vigor of early maturity ; she has reared 

 twenty-eight lambs during her life, and certainly appears now 

 to be capable of rearing another dozen. When a sheep of six 

 or eight years is usually considered only fit for the shambles, 

 and hardly that, such a specimen of vigorous, healthful long- 

 evity is a matter of much interest. 



The Committee does not wish to break the rules of the So- 

 ciety, which forbids awarding gratuities, but would recommend 

 that the premium of $5.00 for the best fine wooled buck, be 



