172 SHEEP HUSBANbttY IN THE SOUTH. 



Itelieve that this can be depended upon, with any certainty, in rai.ns of the 

 fouith Merino cross. My only experience in this particular is in the ob- 

 uervation of other men's flocks who have bred with high-grade rams.* 

 These have invariably lacked the style and perfection of thorough-bred 

 flocks. The sixth, seventh, or eighth cross might be generally, and the 

 last perhaps almost invariably, as good as pure-blood rams, but I confess 

 1 should still prefer to adhere to the latter. Pure blood is a fixed stand- 

 ard, and were every breeder to think himself at liberty to depart from it, 

 in his rams, each one more or less, according to his own judgment or 

 caprice, the whole blood of the country would become adulterated. No 

 man wou' I be authorized to sell a ram of any cross, be it the tenth, or 

 even the t\ entieth, as a full-blood. 



It is all-important for those commencing flocks either of full-bloods, or 

 by crossing, to select the choicest rams. A grown ram may be made to 

 serve II from 100 to 150 ewes in a season. A good Merino ram will, 

 speaking within bounds, add more than a pound of wool to the fleece of 

 the dam, on every lamb got by it, from a common-wooled ewe.§ Here is 

 one hundred or one hundred and fifty pounds of wool for the use of a 

 ram for a single season ! And every lamb subsequently got by him adds a 

 pound to this amount.- Many a ram gets, during his life, 800 or 1,000 

 lambs ! Nor is the extra amount of wool all. He gets from 800 to 1,000 

 half-blooded sheep, worth double their dams, and ready to be made the 

 basis of another and higher stride in improvement. A good ram, then, is 

 as important, and, it seems to me, quite as vaKiable an animal as a good 

 farm-horse stallion ! When the number of a ram's progeny are taken into 

 consideration, and when it is seen over what an immense extent, even in 

 his own direct offspring, his good or bad qualities are to be perpetuated, 

 the folly of that economy which would select an inferior one is sufficiently 

 obvious. 



Every one desirous of starting a flock will find it his best economy, 

 where the proper flocks to draw rams from are not near him, to purchase 

 several of the same breed, of course, but of different strains of blood. Thus, 

 ram No. 2 can be put on the offspring of No. 1, and vice versa ; No. 3 can 

 be put upon the offspring of both, and both upon the offspring of No. 3. 

 The changes which can be rung on three distinct strains of blood, witnout 

 in-and-in breeding close enough to be attended with any considerable dan- 

 ger, are innum.erable.^ But if these rams of different strains are bought 

 promiscuously, without reference to similarity of characteristics, there 

 may, and probably will be differences between them, and it might require 

 time and skill to give a flock descended from them, a proper uniformity of 

 character. Those who breed rams for sale should be prepared to furnish 

 different strains of blood with the necessary individual and family uni 

 formity. 



* I hfive never knowingly bred with any other ram than a pure-blood, of any stock, or for any purpose. 



II By methods hereafter to be described. 



5 That is, if the ewe at 3 yeais old sheared 3 lbs. of wool, the lamb at the same age will shear 4 lbs. ol 

 wool. 



IT The brother and si.'ter are of the Mmc blcod ; the father and daughter, half; the father and ETand 

 d.iughter, one-fourth ; ibi father and great grand-daughter, one-eighth, and so on. Breeding between an- 

 imals possessing one-eighth of the same blood, would not be considered very close breedinir ; and it ie no* 

 UQcustomary, in rugged, well-fonned families, to breed between those possessing one-fourth of the Btnu 



