24 THE DOMESTIC SHEEP. 



It was in the year 1801, four years now short of a cen- 

 tury, that Mr. DeLessert, a French banker, owning a farm 

 near Kingston in the State of New York, imported a single 

 sheep, one of four- shipped from Spain, ihree of which died 

 on the passage. Mr. Seth Adams of Massachusetts the same 

 year with better fortune imported a pair from France, and 

 probably of pure Spanish extraction and blood, as the French 

 Merino specially was not then in existence, but about to be- 

 come so only as a special product of pure Spanish blood 

 under French culture. The next year two pairs were sent 

 from France by Mr. Livingston, our Minister to that coun- 

 try, to his estate on the Hudson river in New York. The 

 most important importation, however, was made in this same 

 year by Mr. Humphreys, our Minister to Spain, who brought 

 home with him two hundred. Seven years later our Minister 

 to Portugal, Mr. Wm. Jarvis of Vermont, sent home large 

 flocks, and still more in the two years after. All these sheep 

 were procured under the most favorable circumstances, and 

 were the best specimens of the best flocks that could be 

 selected. 



After these other shipments were made but none of 

 importance. These sheep, soon naturalized, throve exceed- 

 ingly, the produce soon greatly exceeded the original flocks 

 in product of wool and general stamina of constitution, and 

 there are several flocks now existing in the United States in 

 which the pure blood, unmixed by any other, still flows. 



The number of sheep thus imported amounted to 3,850 

 head and were made up of the finest of the Spanish flocks 

 that were confiscated by the Spanish Government, as one of 

 the penalties of political offences by four leading Spanish 

 noblemen. There could not have been any more favorable 

 opportunity of thus practically transferring the best blood 

 of the Spanish flocks to a new country and location; and 

 this turned out to be by virtue of the favorable soil and cli- 

 mate, as well as of the energy and enterprise of the New 

 England and New York breeders; and thus the successful 

 transplanting of the flocks of Spain was accomplished. 

 The foundation of the best breed of Merinos in the world 

 was thus laid on the most favorable soil, and has been built 

 upon by the native skill and aptitude of the American shep- 

 herds still further with most satisfactory results. 



