EAST Off THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 427 



shearing, in Essex County, June 21, 1815, of rams, ewes, and lambs 

 gives this result : Twenty-six sheep gave 186^ pounds, an average of 

 7 J pounds a head; 2 bucks and 6 ewes gave 73 J pounds, an average of 

 9^^ pounds; 12 lambs born in the spring gave 30 pounds. 

 In the same county, at Eahway, December, 1824, a farmer writes : 



My flock consists of 550, and the yield is as nearly as can be 4 pounds to the fleece 

 the flock round, when sliorn without washing. When washed on the hack 3 pounds. 

 I began twelve or thirteen years ago with a few Merinos, crossing them with an old 

 flock of coarse-wooled sheep, being careful to preserve the finest, and now have the 

 flock in such a state that the wool is equal to the flocks of Spain. 



When the woolen manufacture succumbed after the peace of 1815, 

 and under the great importation of woolen goods from Great Britain, 

 New Jersey suffered intensely and her Merino flocks diminished rap- 

 idly and to such an extent that in 1820 there were but few remaining. 

 The woolen factories that were so plentiful and prosperous in 1814 were, 

 in 1821, so few in number and so poor as to workmanship that New 

 'Jersey wool was sent to Steubenville, Ohio, there to be manufactured 

 into cloth and returned to the State or sent to New York, Philadelphia, 

 and Baltimore. There were but few full-blood Merino flocks then 

 remaining; most of them had been sold to go westward or converted into 

 mixed flocks by the crossing on them of mixed Leicester and Teeswater 

 rams, by which the whole sheep husbandry of the State was radically 

 changed and fine wool growing was superseded by mutton and lamb 

 raising for the New York and Philadelphia markets. By 1830 the 

 Merino flocks had almost disappeared; but a year or two before this 

 Merino sheep were selling for $3 to $6, the best rams bringing the lat- 

 ter price. Many flocks, among which may be mentioned Caldwell's, 

 Howell's, and Judge Grifiith's, had been transferred to the cheaper 

 lauds of Ohio and western Pennsylvania. The Saxon Merino found 

 but little favor in New Jersey and the French Merino came into the 

 country after the State had become so thoroughly committed to the 

 mutton sheep that it was scarcely noticed. In 1840 the Merino was 

 entirely eliminated from the sheep husbandry of New Jersey. There 

 was an occasional instance where a farmer kept a half dozen or so as a 

 curiosity to be shown at county or State fairs, but as part of the econ- 

 omy of the farm they were not considered, and Gloucester County, 

 which in 1814 supported choice flocks, could not show a score even of 

 mixed grade, and the fields that fed the choice importations from Spain, 

 collected with such care and at such expense by James Caldwell, were 

 now feeding low-grade descendants from these same sheep, shipped 

 from Ohio to be fattened for the Philadelphia butcher and sold in the 

 market at from $5 to $6 each. By 1850 a similar system prevailed 

 throughout the State. Flocks were kept principally for producing 

 early lambs, which sold from $2.50 to $5. Many grazers, however, 

 were in the habit of buying a considerable number of Western sheep, 

 principally wethers, which they bought in June or July from $2 to $3 



