82 FINE WOOL SHEEP TIUSBANDRY. 
which would produce an average of more than 5 lbs. 
of well washed prime Merino wool. But from these, 
100 could be drawn, which, subdivided into a couple 
of flocks, given “the range” of an entire farm in sum- 
mer and well kept in winter, would yield a pound 
more of wool a head. The heaviest fleeced 50 of this 
hundred, bought by a breeder, protected from all 
storms and pampered for show, would yield nearly 7 lbs. 
of washed wool ahead, and a few scattering ones from 
8 to even 9 lbs. Should one of the very heaviest 
fleeced ewes of the flock fail to have a lamb at two or 
three years old, and become very fat, she might pro- 
duce 10 lbs. of wool the succeeding year. Prime rams 
unwashed and housed from storms from the middle 
of August to shearing,* produce from 18 to 20 lbs. ; 
and occasionally, if large and very highly kept, two, 
three, and even five pounds more. 
Introduction of the French Merino. 
When the American Merino started on his second 
and rapid march of improvement, he soon found a 
new foreign competitor for public favor in the field. 
Mr, D. ©. Collins’s importation of French Merinos 
in 1840, has already been alluded to in the extracts 
I have published from Mr. Taintor’s letter. These 
sheep found a warm admirer and advocate in Anthony 
Benezet Allen, the very able editor of the American 
Agriculturist, and they were: consequently brought 
rapidly into public notice. Mr. Allen attended Mr. 
Collins’s shearing in 1848. Je considered the wool 
* Tt has become so customary not to wash the best stock rams, and 
to treat them as above mentioned, that I am compelled to give their 
weight of fleeces under such circumstances. 
