Around 1800, each farmer in the vicinity of Philadelphia and 

 Lancaster kept forty to fifty sheep. 15 



Pennsylvania has played a great part in the development of the 

 Merino breed of sheep, which has been and is in a large measure the 

 foundation stock of the sheep industry of the United States and the 

 wool-growing countries of the world. The original importations of 

 Spanish Merinos were made by the following men : Robert Livingston, 

 United States Minister to France in 1802; Col. David Humphrey, Min- 

 ister to Spain in 1802; William Jarvis, American Consul at Lisbon, in 



Fig. 4. A Southdown ram. 



1810; and Richard Meade, American Consul at Cadiz, Spain, in 1810.. 

 Dr. James Mease, near Philadelphia, during this period, was especially 

 connected with the improvement of sheep. In 1810 and 1811 over 

 2,500 Merinos were landed in Philadelphia, some being the best that 

 were brought to the country. As the Merino was a wool sheep and 

 not suited to the eastern section of Pennsylvania, where mutton was in 

 demand and the raising of sheep for wool alone was unprofitable, these 

 sheep were gradually sent westward or crossed with improved mutton 

 breeds, and by 1840 Merinos were unknown where formerly they had 

 been raised in abundance in the eastern part of the State. 



15 U. S. Sheep Report, 1892. 



11 



