EAST OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 167 



ounce raccoon, and 2 ounces rabbit. Both worked iip very well. The 

 Merino wool was tVom Humphreys' half-bloods. 



Early in March, 1810, Gol. Hmiiphreys sold 2 rams and 2 ewes for 

 $6,000,* and a few weeks later the statement was made that he had 

 sold 4 rams for $6,000, to be taken to Kentucky. Wliether these two 

 notices referred to the same sale can uot now be determined. About 

 this time, however, the Humphreys sheep were taken into Kentucky. 

 A letter from Lexington, in that State, July 31, 1810, says: 



A fliick, consisting of 85 Merino sheep from Col. Humphreys' stock, arrived this 

 -sveek at the farm of Col. James Trotter, near this town. Part are full-bloodefl, and 

 part are from diiferent crosses of onr own breed, and from the high reputation of 

 Col. Humphreys there can be no doubt but they are as represented. 



"Whether this was part of the flock of 176 that reached Marietta, 

 Ohio, on the 9th of that month, in charge of Seth Adams, we can not 

 say. It is more than probable that it was. 



In the summer of 1812, Elihu Ives sold for Col. Humphreys, at Pitts- 

 burg, Pa., or exchanged for wool from Texas, a flock of half-bloods, 

 three-fourtlis, seven-eighths, fifteen-sixteenths, and full-bloods, and in 

 1813 Ives closed a bargain for 38,000 pounds of wool from the Province 

 of Texas, and writes of a brother who had gone into Kentucky with 42 

 rams. The wool thus obtained, by exchangeof sheep and manufactured 

 goods, was sent east to Humphreys's mills at Hnmphreysville, Conn. 

 These trifling facts may now seem unimportant and uot worthy of record, 

 but to the historian and economist they are full of meaning. , 



Col. Humphreys bred his flock for a number of years with great suc- 

 cess and satisfaction to himself. The very ones he brought from Spain, 

 he says, increased half a pound in their fleeces; and their descendants 

 continued to improve in that and every other particular. He was 

 assiduous in the improvement of flocks in his own neighborliood and 

 in pushing that improvement into the far west aud southwest. It is 

 said by some tliac he disposed of his flock about 1813, through Elihu 

 Ives, as elsewhere related, though the weight of authority is tliat he 

 retained it until his death in 1818, when causes had sunk the Merinos 

 into contempt and neglect, and his invaluable sheep were then scattered, 

 and as a general thing fell into the hands of those who attached no 

 great value to their blood, for there were but two or three instances 

 where they were preserved distinct after 1826. The improvement made 

 by Col. Humphreys was not marked, but that the flock was a marked 

 and very valuable one and a great acquisition to the country admits of 

 no question; from it was procured the foundations of the best flocks of 

 Connecticut, and their success up to 1810 and 1811 prepared the way 

 for the larger importations of these years, and awakened the public to 

 a realization of the great value of the Merino sheep to the wealth and 



prosperity of the country. 



* New York Gazette, March 16, 1810. 



