SHEEP AND WOOL 



house and helped the boys in the fields. Once, In mid- 

 winter, one of the boys needed a new suit, and there 

 was neither money nor wool In the house. The mother 

 sheared the half-grown fleece from a sheep and in a 

 week it was made Into clothing. The shorn sheep, so 

 generous in such need, was protected by a wrapping 

 made of braided straw. They lived four miles from 

 the meeting house, to which the mother and her two 

 boys walked every Sunday. The boys became Samuel 

 and Eliphalet Nott, one a famous preacher, one the 

 president of Union College." 



The same way out of a similar difficulty Is related of 

 one of the Litchfield County towns, with the difference 

 that the shorn sheep was provided with a dress fash- 

 ioned from an old blanket. 



In the special report on the "Sheep Industry of the 

 United States" It Is stated: "It Is probable that the first 

 sheep brought to this country were of the kind common 

 to England at the time and were the Wiltshire and 

 Romney Marsh, the Herefordshire, the Norfolk and 

 the old Southdown or Sussex sheep; at least all the 

 characteristics of these breeds could be seen in the dif- 

 ferent flocks In the eastern States at the beginning of 

 the present century [1801]." The late T. S. Gold 

 characterizes the sheep of the early part of the century 

 in Litchfield County as being "long-legged, scraggy ani- 

 mals, with thin, coarse wool," and adds: "It naturally 



C85] 



