CHAPTER III. 

 AMEEIOAN MEEINOS ESTABLISHED AS A VAEIETT. 



THE MIXED LEONBSB OB JABVIS MBKINOS THE INFANTADO 



OB ATWOOD MEEINOS THE PATJLAB OE EICH MEEIlirOS 



OTHEB MEBINOS. 



The Mixed Leonese oe Jabvis Mebinos. — The origin 

 of Mr. Jarvis' flock has been given. Their pedigrees rested 

 on his own direct statements ; and his integrity and veracity 

 were never challenged by friend or foe. As has been seen, he 

 mixed five families of Spanish sheep, the Paulars considerably 

 predominating in numbers, — but his son writes me that for 

 the purpose of "accommodating the manufacturers" he bred 

 "in the contrary direction" from the type of the darker 

 colored and yolkier families.* The appearance of his sheep 

 when I first saw them, something over twenty years since, I 

 thought plainly indicated that he had "accommodated the 

 m.inufacturers " by chiefly using rams of his Escurial family 

 or which bore a large proportion of that blood. They were 

 lighter colored than the original Spanish sheep of other 

 families and their wool was finer. It was entirely free from 

 hardened yolk, or "gum," internally and externally, and 

 opened on a rosy skin with a style and brilliancy which 

 resembled the Saxon. It was longish, for those times, on the 

 back and sides, but shorter on the beUy, and did not cover the 

 head and legs anything like as well as diose parts are covered 

 in the improved sheep of the present day. It was of fair 

 medium thickness on the best animals. The foi-m was perhaps 

 rather more compact than that of the original Spanish sheep, 

 but altogether it bore a close resemblance to them. I think 

 ,that prior to 1840, Mr. Jarvis had begun to breed back 

 toward the other strains of blood in his flock. At about 

 that period small and choice lots of breeding ewes were 



* See Charles Jarris' letter to me in my report on " Fjpe-Wool Sheep Husbandry," 

 1862. 



