TINE WOOL SHEEP HUSBANDRY. 3f 
on the single fact above given; it is only one among 
a number of scattering hints and circumstances which 
have led me to the opinion that the sheep were from 
the cabana of the Duke of Infantado.* 
One thing is certain. No such ram as Mr. Bulk- 
ley’s could have been of Escurial blood. And the 
darkest and yolkiest sheep bred in the United States 
(Mr. Stephen Atwood’s family), which trace directly 
to sheep bred by Colonel Humphreys, cannot be de- 
scended from the whitest and dryest fleeced sheep of 
Spain. 
Judging from the statements in Colonel Humphreys’ 
manuscript letters lying before me, he not only found 
great satisfaction but great success in breeding his 
sheep. The very ones he brought from Spain, he 
says, Increased half a pound in their fleeces; and their 
descendants continued to improve in that and every 
other particular. He speaks glowingly of their hardi- 
ness and propensity to fatten; and in the highest 
terms of their mutton. This gentleman (to whom the 
farmers of New England should erect a statue) died in 
1818, when causes, hereafter to be detailed, had sunk 
the Merinos into contempt and neglect. His invalua- 
ble sheep were then scattered, and, as a general thing, 
they appear to have fallen into the hands of those who 
attached no great value to their blood, for I can 
learn of but two or three instances where they were 
preserved distinct after 1826; and it is a lesson of 
* Colonel Humphreys was a favorite at both the courts of Portu- 
gal and Spain. He had been made highly wealthy by marmage. He 
had the means to pay for the best; and those who know any thing of 
him, know how absurd it would be to suppose he failed to instruct his 
agent to obtain the best. 
