CHAPTER III 

 PROBLEMS IN THE IMPROVEMENT OF SHEEP 



Appearance of Unimproved Sheep. In countries practicing 

 modern methods of breeding and feeding, the domestic sheep (Ovis 

 dries) is markedly different in appearance from its unimproved 

 kind. Judged according to our conception of right proportions, un- 

 improved sheep are ill-shaped, with long, thin legs, long necks, and 

 narrow bodies. As a rule their wool is coarse, characterless, ad- 

 mixed with hair, variable in color, and does not extend well over 

 the lower parts of the body. It may be of good quality on the 

 shoulders, but coarse and very little different from hair on the 

 thighs, and in color it may be white, brown, gray, or black on 

 different individuals, or sometimes two or more of these colors 

 appear in the same fleece. The sheep belonging to the Navajo 

 Indians of New Mexico and Arizona furnish the most interesting 

 study of unimproved strains to be found in North America 

 (Fig. 13). 



Breeding Problems. When man first started to domesticate 

 sheep, he probably recognized certain valuable characteristics in 

 them, and he likely bred for these, or it may be that he recognized 

 some of their more valuable characteristics before he began the work 

 of domestication ; for Shaler says that man attains some of the 

 mechanic arts before he begins to domesticate animals. Weaving, 

 a very old art, was supplanted by the practice of pressing moist wool 

 into a felt, which itself was an advance over the custom of using 

 skins with hairy or woolly covering for clothing and shelter. 



Improvement of Wool. From all we can learn it would appear 

 that the problem of improving wool must have early attracted the 

 attention of sheep owners. Probably the first step consisted in 

 getting a longer, heavier growth of wool more nearly free from an 

 admixture of hair. Very likely such improvement was sought to 

 make the wool easier to handle in the process of weaving, which was 

 a considerable task among the nomads whose raiment, tents, and 

 beds were woven from wool and hair. 



Fine Wool. As the art of weaving developed and as the people 

 cultivated a taste for fine raiment and furnishings, wool of fine 



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