382 SHEEP INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES 



animals shoot so rapidly into favor, and disappear so rapidly and under 

 such general contempt. We thought it went to an extreme; that under 

 certain circumstances something useful coxild have been made out of 

 crosses with these sheep." They were introduced especially as a wool- 

 growing sheep. They were wholly unused to a climate like ours, and 

 wholly unsuited by their previous management to the American system 

 of wool-growing. They required more shelter from vicissitudes of 

 weather, more care iu all respects, more and better feed than anybody 

 then thought of giving to American Merinos. French management had 

 converted them into mutton sheep by forcing them as English mutton 

 sheep are forced; and when this management was abandoned in the 

 United States, where they were put on scanty pasturage, or pastures 

 rendered dry and innutritious by our scorching summers, and confined 

 to dry hay, or that with a mere modicum of grain in winter, they did 

 not of course receive suflicient sustenance to build up and sujjport their 

 great frames. The result was precisely what it would have been with 

 the large mutton sheep of England, suddenly subjected to such a 

 change of temperature and feed. A few breeders who understood the 

 thing better kept up the forcing and kept up their sheep. But the mass 

 treated them as they had been in the habit of treating the American 

 Merino — or not much better — and they perished like hot-house plants 

 exposed to frost. Their progeny was gaunt and unthrifty and rapidly 

 dwindled in size; and when it was found out that they produced con- 

 siderably less wool for the amount of food consumed, and that their 

 wool was no better than flrst-class American Merino, the edict for their 

 extermination went forth.* It was conceded, however, that this sheep 

 materially increased the weight of many flocks in western I^Tew York. 



The Silesian Merino closely followed the French Merino into ITew York. 

 Like the latter it originated from the Spanish Merino. The native 

 sheep of Silesia were small with long neck and legs, and the head, 

 the body, and the legs devoid of wool. In some districts there existed 

 a superior breed, so far as the wool was concerned. Tliey were never 

 folded; they were housed at night even in summer; the sheep houses 

 were badly ventilated, and the excrement removed from them but twice 

 in the year. Lasteyrie tells us that when Count Von Ma.gnis retired 

 to his large estates at Eckcrsdorf, in 1786, he had 3,000 sheep, the gross 

 return from them amounting to about $912— American money. He 

 began experiments to improve these sheep by crossing them with the 

 large breeds of Hungary. His success was not marked and he had 

 recourse to the Merinos, sparing no expense in order to procure the best 

 rams. He labored hard to produce an artificial pasture on a tract of 

 country that would hardly produce an indigenous plant, for, on scarcely 

 any part of his estates would the rigor of the climate permit any pas- 

 turage during six months of the year. As his power of supporting his 

 sheep increased, he increased their numbers. In process of time the 



*Hearv S. Randall iu Rui-al New Yorker, 1870, 



