130 CEOSSING AMEEICAN AND SAXON MEEINOS. 



Striking instance, in my Report on Fine- Wool Husbandry, 

 1862, of the good results of a Paular and Saxon cross. I will 

 now give one of an Infantado and Saxon cross. Capt. Davis 

 Cossit (XJ. S. y.) of Onondaga, New York, had it 1859 a 

 flock of Saxon ewes with sufficient American Merino blood to 

 yield, on ordinary keep, about four pounds of washed wool 

 per head. In that and the two succeeding years he put 

 his ewes to the Infantado ram "21 per cent.," (named in 

 connection with Petri's table of the dimensions, etc., of Spanish 

 sheep in Chapter 1st of this volume.) In 1862 the fleeces of 

 the young sheep produced by this cross were first weighed 

 separately. Eighty-three two-year old ewes yielded 552 lbs., 

 and eighty yearling ewes 504 lbs. of washed wool — within a 

 fraction, of 6} lbs. per head, and an advance of about 2^ lbs. 

 per head over the fleeces of their dams. Each lot was the 

 entire one (of ewes) of its year : not one having been excluded 

 on account of inferiority. I saw them several times before 

 shearing, and them and their wool immediately after shearing. 

 The wool was in good condition ; and the sheep obviously had 

 not been pampered. They were very uniform in size and 

 shape, and bore a strong resemblance to their sire. Not one 

 of the whole number had short or thin wool. 



In 1863, sixty-five two-year olds (the portion remaining on 

 hand of the eighty yearlings of the preceding year) and 

 ninety-two yearlings (the third crop of lambs got by "21 per 

 cent.") yielded 1,119^ lbs. of washed wool, or an average of 

 7 lbs. 2 oz. per head. All these sheep had been heavily tagged 

 and the tags, which would not have averaged less than 2 oz. 

 of washed wool per head, were not weighed with the 

 fleeces.* 



Notwithstanding these brilliant and rather frequent 

 successes in crossing difierent Merino families, (especially 

 where the object is to merge an inferior in a superior family,) 

 the failures, or comparative failures, have been far more 

 numerous. To cross different families of any breed merely 

 for the sake of crossing, under the impression that it is in 

 itself beneficial to health, or in any other particular — or with 



* I do not eire the weight of the three-year olds' fleeces in 1863, 'bccanse they 

 irere put in with the fleeces of other breeding ewes, and not weighed separately, 

 Ahout fifteen of the yearling ewes were out of some young ewes of a previous cross, 

 then just come into breeding, which yielded about 5 lbs. of wool per head. The two- 

 year olds were sheared on the 24th of May in 1862, and on the 8th and nth of June in 

 1863, so that their fleeces were of 12^ months' growth. The yearlings were dropped 

 between the 6th of Ajiril and 1st of June, 1862, and sheared at the same time with the 

 preceding in 1863, bo that their fleeces did not average over fourteen mouths' growth- 

 the usual one at the first shearing. Neither lot was pampered. 



