EAST OP THE MISSISSIPPI EIVEE. 261 



Improvement in the Atwood Merino has gone on. The heaviest fleece 

 shown by Mr. Hammond weighed 27 pounds; twenty-seven years more 

 progress gave an average of over 31 pounds on 64 rams, 9 of which 

 yielded fleeces averaging 36 pounds 3 ounces each. Of these nine, 6 

 attained fleeces the average of which exceeded 37 pounds. K"or was 

 this confined to the rams. Ewes shearing more than 17J pounds are 

 common, and the records show that many have exceeded Mr. Ham- 

 mond's ewes by 5 pounds more of fleece, and that in 1883 one had pro- 

 duced 7 pounds 8 ounces more than the best ewe fleece ever produced 

 by Mr. Hammond. 



The increased percentage of wool to the carcass also shows a great im- 

 provement. Mr. Eandall stated iu 1864 that 21 per cent of wool in pro- 

 portion to meat had never been exceeded. The second volume of the 

 Vermont Eegister (1883) shows 63 sheep averaging more than 25 per 

 cent of wool, and 1 ram in the hst yielded 15.2 per cent more wool than 

 21 per cent, and 5 exceeded it by more than 10 per cent. These facts 

 show the great character of the Atwood and Hammoud flocks and that 

 of their descendants all over the United States, and the subject may be 

 pursued here no further. 



Mr. Atwood's flock usually numbered from 150 to 200, and in 1866 

 was divided among his three sons, Chauncey, George S., and Eben, each 

 taking an equal third. At this time George S. Atwood bought out his 

 brother Ohauncey's interest. George S. Atwood had commenced a 

 flock in 1839, by the purchase from his father (Stephen Atwood) of one 

 two-year old ewe and one ewe lamb, the choice from those ages. He 

 bred from these two and their descendants, always using his father's 

 rams and those bred within the flock, to which was added the share 

 coming to him from his father's flock and the purchase from his brother 

 in 1866. In 1871 he purchased 5 ewes from the estate of his brother 

 Eben, bred direct from his father's old flock. He used no other rams 

 than his own until the fall of 1880, when he let his sheep out to Mr. 

 Albert Chapman, of Middlebury, Vt., for three years. The entire flock 

 older than the lambs (24 in number) were taken to Vermont where they 

 remained until 1884, at which time 22 of the original ewe sheep and his 

 share of the female increase (10) were returned to Mr. Atwood in 

 Connecticut. In 1887 the flock numbered 20 rams and 48 ewes. 



Old Black, one of the early noted stock rams of the Hammond flock, 

 was bred by Mr. Atwood in 1841 and was sold by him to W. E. Sanford, 

 of Orwell, Vt., who afterwards sold an interest in him to Edwin Ham- 

 mond and W. E. Eemele, of Middlebury, Vt., and was used by them 

 together. His live weight was about 135 pounds and his heaviest fleece 

 was about 14 pounds unwashed wool. He was long, tall, flat-ribbed, rather 

 long in the neck and head, strong-boned, inclined to be roach- backed, 

 deep chested, moderately wrinkled; his wool was about IJ inches long, 

 of medium thickness, very yolky, and dark-colored externally ; face a 

 little bare, and much wool on the shanks. He was not possessed of a 



