FINE WOOL SHECP HUSBANDRY. 4] 
of some of the most celebrated flocks of Spain, to 
have on the spot a public agent who had the sagacity 
and energy to avail himself of the opportunity to 
confer an inestimable benefit on his country. 
Mr. Jarvis very unfortunately crossed a portion 
of his large flock of Spanish Merinos with the 
Saxons, when the latter were brought into the 
country ; but he discovered his error in time to correct 
it,* and made those careful arrangements which 
* Mr. Jarvis wrote to me in 1844, a letter, from which the following 
and some other extracts were published in the same year, m the 
Albany Cultivator and New York Agriculturist: 
“In May, 1826, I purchased 52 or 53 at the sale in Brighton, Mass., 
of the large importation of Saxony sheep by Messrs. Searle, of 
Toston; and the following autumn I selected and separated one hun- 
dred Merino ewes from my flock, and the rest I crossed with Saxony 
bucks. Those hundred Merinos and their descendants I have always 
been careful to keep by themselves, both summer and winter, and 
have been very particular in the choice of pure blood Merino bucks 
to put to them for breeding. The pure blood Merinos I kept maiked 
with my old Merino ear-mark, a half-penny (or notch) under each ear ; 
the progeny of those crossed between Merino and Saxony, with two 
half-pennies under the right ear; and the full-blooded Saxony with 
two half-pennies under each ear. 
“Tn 1831 or 1832, finding that the Saxony crosses were reduced in. 
weight of fleece from four pounds, which was about the average of 
my full blood Merino flock, to two pounds ten ounces, or two pounds 
twelve ounces per fleece, upon an average, I took out all the remain- 
ing old Merino ewes, and put them with the descendants of the one 
hundred formerly reserved pure bloods. I have since bred all the 
Merino ewes with Merino bucks; and the cross-blood ewes with cross- 
blood bucks, selecting those with the heaviest fleeces; and full- 
blooded Saxony ewes with full-blooded Saxony bucks. I have been 
very particular to keep the three kinds of ewes apart, wmter and 
summer. This I have been easily able to do, as I have ten sheep 
yards, each connected with a shed, and well separated with a good 
fence, and water in each; and fifteen pastures, all well walled or 
fenced. I particularly employ one man about my sheep, and 
