84 COMMISSION OF CONSERVATION 



gested the possibility that our long and coarse-wooUed sheep, e.g., 

 the Lincoln, Cotswold, and the Highland black-face might produce 

 lambs with tight curls of considerable gloss. These skins could then 

 be dyed and sold as 'Persian lamb.' But experiments have shown 

 that the curl is rather open — ^not possessing enough horny substance 

 in the wool fibre to produce and maintain a close, tight curl. If a 

 karakul ram with an entire absence of fine-wool blood, be bred to coarse- 

 woolled native sheep, the lamb-skin produced is the equal of the best 

 skins produced in Bokhara from full blood karakuls. This has been 

 well proven in America and is certified by officials of the United States 

 Department of Agriculture, who had such skins valued by New York 

 furriers. It has also been proven that the half-blood karakul rams, 

 produced by the above cross, will, if mated with the coarsest-wooUed 

 native sheep, again produce the same character of fur. A karakul 

 of the requisite quality, when crossed with any coarse-woolled breed 

 of Asia, Africa or elsewhere, always produces valuable lambs. The 

 most valuable skins yet produced in America (wholesale value $12.00) 

 were from a cross of a coarse-woolled karakul ram with coarse-woolled, 

 fawn, Persian fat-rump ewes, which themselves possess no inherent 

 fur qualities. The successful production of Persian lamb fur of high 

 quality seems to depend on both parents possessing (1) practically 

 no fine underwool, (2) very coarse wool, (3) the proper strain of karakul 

 blood. 



„ . ^ The lambs designed for killing are slaughtered before 



Preparing and ^, ^ , , , -r^ ? i ■, • ■. 



Marketing Skins they are two weeks old. If a fine, close curl is deman- 

 ded by the market, killing should take place within three 

 days of birth; if open curl is desired, the lambs may run for six weeks 

 but, when size is increased, the price decreases greatly. The half- 

 blood and quarter-blood karakul-Lincoln and karakul-Cotswold crosses 

 produced in the United States, which were bred from coarse-woolled 

 parents with an almost entire absence of fine wool, and which were 

 killed at the proper time, were priced at from $8.00 to $12.00 each in 

 bale lots of two hundred or less. A considerable number of cheaper ■ 

 skins were produced bringing from $5.00 down. These low prices 

 are due to fine wool in the parents, to killing too late or too early, to 

 improper salting of skins, to deaths of lambs out of season and to 

 tearing of skins. Experience will probably correct these errors and raise 

 the average price. If sheep raising will pay in a district where six 

 months' old lambs are sold for $3 . 00 each, it is obvious that a profit 

 can be made if only $5.00 each were obtained for three-day-old lambs, 

 but the average price for Persian lamb fur would probably be much 

 higher than $5.00. M. Karpov states that: "In the last 15 years 

 the increase in price of these furs in Asia and Southern Russia was 



