48 THE DOMESTIC SHEEP. 



quality of the meat. The sheep had been fed on the fine 

 pastures of the park and on beets specially grown for the 

 Hocks. The meat was distinctly equal to the best of the Eng- 

 lish mutton of the choicest breed of that country, the South- 

 down, and showed that the skillful breeding and the really 

 scientific feeding of the sheep, had transformed the tough, 

 dry flesh of the original Spanish sheep into one of the 

 best market meats in the world. This point is one to be well 

 considered by our breeders of this sheep, for the future pros- 

 perity of the American shepherds is to come, not from the 

 wool alone, but still more from the mutton, which is so 

 rapidly coming into popular favor everywhere; and even in 

 the Southern States, in which mutton has scarcely ever been 

 thought of as a food, and good meat of this kind is practi- 

 cally as unpopular as it is poor and undesirable in quality. 



It is one of the good qualities of this sheep that the fleece 

 is far more profitable for its w r eight than our native Merino. 

 r lhis is due to the absence of the excessive quantity of yolk 

 and gum in the wool. The result of this of course is to in- 

 crease the proportion of actual wool in the fleece. Fleeces of 

 nearly fifty pounds weight this of course as taken from the 

 sheepare by no means surprising; such a weight of course 

 is the product of full grown rams, but yearlings have given 

 fifteen pounds for the first shearing; over twenty-seven for 

 the second; thirty-seven for the third; and forty-eight for the 

 fourth. These weights are not of unusually long wool but 

 are due to the actual density of the wool on the skin, which 

 is one of the common features of this sheep. 



There are two other varieties of the Merino, or the most 

 valuable short fine-wooled sheep. These are the Silesian and 

 the Saxon Merinos. But as these sheep are small, the fleece 

 light, and too fine for the now prevalent classes of woolen 

 goods, they are merely mentioned without going in any way 

 into a discussion of their special characteristics. It is 

 scarcely probable that in the present, and doubtless future 

 progress of our woolen manufactures, we shall ever need to 

 find the rearing of these special fine-wooled sheep profitable. 

 It will be the future business of the shepherd to supply 

 the demand for mutton, a demand that is unquestionably 

 bound to increase steadily, until we shall approach, if not 

 overtake and pass, the condition of the sheep industry in 



