SHEEP RAISING 161 



and Suffolks are included among the medium wool varieties, are remark- 

 able for fertility, and breed any time of year. This makes the Dorset 

 excellent for raising winter lambs in time for market just after the holiday 

 poultry season. This is a profitable industry always. The winter season 

 is hard on breeding ewes and the lambs; but against that is the "better 

 risk" to the breeder, in that there is no danger from stomach worms 

 which make a gamble of profit in summer flocks, unless the stockman is 

 exceedingly careful in providing new pastures. 



WOOL TYPE The wool sheep, that is the Merino varieties, are the 

 lightest of all the improved breeds; also slow to fatten, 

 and slow to mature. On the other hand they are good grazers, will "rustle" 

 for themselves when necessary, and adapt themselves to any climate. But 

 the French Merino, the Rambouillet, as stated above, has been differently 

 bred and so matures much earlier. It certainly is a good breed both for 

 wool and for mutton. 



THE AMERICAN As early as 1565 Spanish sheep were introduced to this 



INDUSTRY country when Menendez the Spanish explorer founded 



the town of St. Augustine in Florida, the oldest city 



in the United States. All through Colonial times we find some attention 

 given the sheep industry. Sheep were imported into Jamestown in 1609, 



A Fine Type of American Merino 



when the settlement was only two years old; but on account of wolves and 

 other causes the flocks did not thrive and there were not more than three 

 thousand all told a half century later. The Dutch, in New York colony, 

 made importations as early as 1625. William Penn introduced them in his 

 colony of Pennsylvania along in 1683; and Pennsylvania early encouraged 

 the industry by fairs. The Swedes, in New Jersey, brought sheep with 

 them; and as early as 1700 their flocks were plentifully sprinkled through 

 that colony. 



But .worse than wolves, worse than the hardships of Colonial settle- 

 ments in winter, were the jealous taxes levied so unjustly by the Mother 



