EAST OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 267 



that a description of them would be attended with many difficulties. 

 Every pasture had its favorite sheep, every district had mauy varieties 

 of pasture, but it can be said upon the whole that except towards the 

 south of the country they did not yield a fleece possessing much value 

 for the woolen manufacture; they were in fact the kind of sheep still 

 found in all the countries bordering the German Ocean from the Elbe 

 to the Seine. 



The first concerted improvement in the sheep of France was in the 

 direction of better wool, and was before 1721, when some Spanish ewes 

 were brought into the country. Towards the middle of the century 

 other Spanish sheep were procured, and Trudaine, the French minis- 

 ter, imported a flock in 1776. Private individuals made importations 

 between 1776 and 1786. In 1785 Louis XYI, who two years before had 

 bought the domain of Eambouillet, on which he had established an 

 experimental farm, obtained from the King of Spain permission to pur- 

 chase and take from the Kingdom a flock of pure Merinos. The Span- 

 ish King gave orders that the selection should be made from the finest 

 flocks of his Kingdom. The flock was selected around Segovia from 

 the flocks known as the Serales, Perella, Paular, Negretti, Escurial, 

 Alcola, San Juan, Portago, Iranda, and Salezar, and was taken by easy 

 stages to Eambouillet, after having passed the winter in the lands of 

 Bordeaux. About 60 died on the journey and the number arriving at 

 Eambouillet was 366 — 318 ewes, 41 rams, and 7 wethers. Shortly fifter 

 their arrival it was discovered that they were affected with the rot, 

 which carried off 35 ewes and 60 lambs. 



Pictet, a French writer, who paid great attention to sheep husbandry, 

 says of this flock of Spanish Merinos, selected from 11 (10) cabanas, 

 that there was no uniformity in their appearance or outline; some were 

 long legged, others short and thick legged; on some the entire head and 

 part of the face and the legs, down to the very hoofs, were covered with 

 wool, while on others these parts were destitute; some had straight 

 and others round faces ; some broad and others narrow foreheads ; some 

 with large and others with small ears ; some with a large dewlap and folds 

 around the neck, others with none; some with rounded ribs, broad hips, 

 and small back, others the reverse; some with bulging and others with 

 depressed backbones. 



Another writer, a few years later, said that the flock was composed of 

 individuals of extraordinary beauty, unknown until then in all those of 

 the same breed that had been chosen from a great number of flocks and 

 brought from Spain at different periods. These animals were of a motley 

 color, disagreeable to the eye, though immaterial in regard to quality; 

 thecharacteristicdifterences were blended somewhatin the successivealli- 

 ances of the individuals in which they showed themselves, and it resulted 

 in a breed that perhaps resembles none of those of which the first flock 

 was composed, but which yields nothing in beauty as to form, size of 



