240 THE DOMESTIC SHEEP. 



and promises so to continue. The more than 2,000 years 

 of successive breeding gives to this sheep the greatest pre- 

 potency, and thus the males have always been found to 

 exert the most conspicuous effect upon other sheep bred to 

 them. The wool, too, is so firmly established in its char- 

 acter that the produce of a cross has from the first a close 

 resemblance to the wool of the sire, an^after two or three 

 crosses it becomes to all purposes a Merino wool. But for 

 the improvement of the coarser-wooled sheep the selection 

 of the rams is the most important matter to consider. We 

 must here revert to the principle involved for a rule oi' prac- 

 tice. It is really a scientific, almost a mathematical problem, 

 as thus: given a certain value to be decreased in quantity 

 by division or subtraction, then the larger the value of this 

 quantity and the less that of the other to be taken from it 

 the greater the value of the remainder. The Merino ram has 

 greatest natural force, due to its long inheritance, while the 

 ewes chosen have less but a greater natural susceptibility. 

 For instance in all improved breeding of whatever animals 

 we do not put a thoroughbred dam to a scrub sire, but the 

 reverse, and in six such crosses we think we have a progeny 

 in all material respects equal, except for breeding, to the 

 sires. It is the progeny of the pure bull and the common 

 cow that makes the valuable grade for the dairy or the 

 butcher, but no one thinks of reversing this method except 

 when the breeder of sheep, wanting to refine the fleece, does 

 this, and makes the coarse wool the top cross and makes a 

 certain failure. For in most of the efforts to make a cross- 

 bred sheep the larger coarse-wooled ram has been put to 

 the Merino instead of reversing this, and getting the prepo- 

 tent effect just in the line desired. 



The Merino has the fine fleece, and the weight of it. It 

 has the extreme hardiness; rams of this breed have lived 

 and served in the flock to the age of 26 years. The writer 

 had one 13 years, when it fell a victim to the wandering cur. 

 And it had the potency of its lineage. Hence for the im- 

 provement of wool with any kind of ewes it may be the first 

 choice. Doubtless the cause of most of the failures in at- 

 tempts at crossing with this breed has been the mistake of 

 making this strong breed the under cross. Such a failure 

 was made by a French breeder with the Merino crossed by 



