EAST OP THE MISSISSIPPI EIVEE. 367 



rams more than 1 year old sold from $50 to $100, and ewe lambs $20 to 

 $30. Southdown sheep were somewhat lower, while the Saxony and 

 Spanish Merinos and other finewooled sheep sold from $25 to $50. 



Some of these early Leicesters sold to the butchers for $20 each. Six 

 furnished from the flock of Mr. Dunn when butchered weighed 810 

 pounds, an average of 135 pounds, and one fattened by HallocksBros., 

 when kiUed in 1834 for the Poughkeepsie market, dressed 148 pounds. 



Mr. John Wilkinson, of Duanesburg, sheared an average of over 6 

 Ijounds of wool per head from his Leicestershire flock, and in 1837 Mr. 

 Dunn sheared 10 yearling rams, a cross of the Cotswold on the Leices- 

 ter, of lOOJ pounds of wool. 



But the Leicester breed of sheep never proved a great favorite with 

 a large class of the New York farmers. The long, cold winters, but 

 more especially the dry, scorching summers, when it was often difScult 

 to obtain the green tender food in which it dehghted, together with the 

 general deprivation of green food and roots in the winter, robbed it of 

 its early maturity, and even of the size which it attained in England. 



In 1823 Sidney Hawes imported some Southdowns, of which he sold 

 36 ewes, 2 rams, and 10 2-year old wethers to 0. IST. Bement, of Albany. 

 Mr. Bement maintained his flock many years, and in 1836 had also a 

 flock of good and well-descended Hampshire Downs. In 1834 Francis 

 Eotch, of Butternuts, Otsego County, imported 6 Southdown ewes and 

 1 ram from the famous English flock of John Ellman. The ewes aver- 

 aged 4 pounds of wool each, but it was for their unrivaled mutton that 

 they were esteemed and became such great favorites throughout the 

 State and the United States. In 1835 James Bagg, of Orange County, 

 began importing Southdowns, and continued it for many years, select- 

 ing from the best flocks in Sussex, and disposing of his increase to every 

 section of the State. In 1837 and 1838 Mr. E. P. Prentice, Mount Hope, 

 near Albany, imported some sheep from the flock of John Ellman. 

 These, with some Ootswolds, were sold to J. D. Mclntyre, of Albany, 

 in 1841, who had at that time as select a flock as any in the country. 

 It numbered 64 Southdowns and Ootswolds and crosses. His South- 

 down fleeces averaged 4J pounds clean wool, and his Cotswold fleeces 

 7S pounds. Mr. Eotch, of Otsego, continued his importations from the 

 flocks of Jonas Webb, the Duke of Eichmond, and the EUmans, until it 

 became the bestinthe Union. He imported also for others, among whom 

 were Bishop Meade and Mr. Stevenson, of Virginia. An importation of 

 1 ram and 2 ewes for the former and the same number for the latter 

 was made in 1841, and the weight of the rams were noted. Bishop 

 Meade's 10-months-old ram weighed 248 pounds; Mr. Stevenson's, 254 

 pounds ; and a 6-monthsram lamb, bought by Mr. Eotch for hisown flock, 

 weighed 152 pounds. These were from Jonas Webb's flock, whose 

 whole flock sheared an average of 6^| pounds each, the rams yielding 

 from 9 to 11 poimJs. 



