FINE WOOL SHEEP HUSBANDRY. 51 
“The first importation of Saxony sheep into the 
United States was made by Mr. Samuel Henshaw, a 
merchant of Boston, at the instance of Colonel James 
Shephard, of Northampton. They were but six or 
seven innumber. In 1824 Messrs G. & T. Searle, of 
Boston, imported seventy-seven Saxon sheep. They 
were selected and purchased by a Mr. Kretchman, a 
correspondent of the above firm, residing in Leipsic, 
and shipped at Bremen on board the American 
schooner Velocity. I was engaged to take charge of 
the sheep on the passage, and 4 also shipped six on 
my own account. J am sorry to say that as many as 
one-third of the sheep purchased by Kretchman (who 
shared profit and loss in the undertaking) were not 
pure-blooded sheep. The cargo was sold at auction 
at Brooklyn, as ‘pure-blooded Electoral Saxons,’ and 
thus unfortunately in the very outset the pure and 
impure became irrevocably mixed. But I feel the 
greatest certainty that the Messrs. Searle intended to 
import none but the pure stock. The fault lay with 
Kretchman. In the fall of 1824, I entered into an 
arrangement with the Messrs. Searle to return to 
Saxony, and purchase, in connection with Kretchman, 
from 160 to 200 Electoral sheep. I was detained at 
sea seven weeks, which gave rise to the belief that I 
was shipwrecked and lost. When I finally arrived, 
the sheep had been already bought by Kretchman. 
On being informed of what the purchase consisted, I 
protested against taking them to America, and insisted 
herd of his day in our country. Mr. Grove was an ardent, decided 
man, prejudiced by early associations for the favorite sheep of his 
native country, and by the fact that his own skill produced exceptional 
results in their favor, and thus gave them an entire advantage when 
brought into comparison with rival varieties or flocks which were less 
perfectly managed. But where he states any fact on his own knowl- 
edge, it can always be implicitly relied on. The German fatherland 
never sent out a more incorruptible son. 
