24 PEICES OF WOOL. 



Consul at Lisbon, Portugal, taking advantage of the offers of 

 the Spanish Junto to sell the confiscated flocks of certain 

 Spanish nobles, bought and shipped to different ports in the 

 United States, about three thousand eight hundred and fifty 

 sheep. About one thousand three hundred of these were 

 Aqueirres, two hundred Escurials and two hundred Montarcos. 

 The remainder consisted of Paulars and Negrettis — mostly 

 of the former.* 



Mr. Jarvis very unfortunately crossed his own flock with 

 the Saxons, when the latter were introduced, but he dis- 

 covered his error in time to correct it, and bred a pure 

 Spanish flock to the period of his death. But he mixed his 

 different Spanish families together, consisting of about half 

 Paulars, a quarter Aqueirres, and the other fom-th Escurials, 

 Negrettis and Montarcos.J He stated to me that the average 

 weight of fleece in his fiill-blood Meriao flock, before his 

 Saxon cross, was about 4 lbs.§ This I suppose included rams' 

 and wethers' fleeces. The subsequent history of these sheep 

 will again be referred to. Prom 3,000 to 6,000 Spanish 

 Merinos were imported into the United States by other persons 

 in 1809, 1810, a,nd 1811._ 



The earlier importations had attracted little notice until 

 the commencement of our commercial difficulties with England 

 and France, in 1 807. When the embargo was imposed, that 

 year, wool rose to $1 a pound. In 1809 and 1810 Mr. 

 Livingston sold his full-blood wool, unwashed, for $2 a pound. 

 DurLag the war of 1812, it rose to 82.50 a pound. Many of 

 the imported Merino rams sold for $1,000 apiece, and we 

 have seen that Mr. Livingston sold ram lambs of his own 

 raising at that price. Ewes sometimes sold for equal sums. 

 The Peace of Ghent (1815,^ re-opened commerce and over- 

 threw our infant manufactories. Such a revulsion ensued that 

 before the close of the year fuU-blood Merino sheep were sold 

 for f 1 a head ! Wool did not materially rally in price for the 

 nine succeeding years, and during that period most of the 

 full-blood flocks of the country were broken up or adulterated 

 in blood. 



• See Mr. Jarvis' letter to me, in 1841, in New Tork Agricultural Society's Trans- 

 actions of that year. 



t See Iiis letter to me on this snbject in 1844, published that year in the Albany 

 Cnltivator and New York Agriculturist. 



§ Mr. Jarvis gives the facts more precisely in a letter to L. A. Morrell, published in 

 American Shepherd, p. 390. He says :— From 1811 to 1826, when 1 began to cross with 

 the Saxonies, my average weight of wool was 8 lbs. 14 oz. to 4 lbs. 3 oz. — varying 

 according tokeep. The weight of the bucks was from 5>i lbs. to 6K lbs. in good 

 stock case, all washed on the sheeps' backs." 



