104 FINE WOOL SHEEP HUSBANDRY. 
ploys an abundance of labor. These establishments 
of the wealthy are coustantly increasing in our coun- 
try, especially in the vicinity of cities and villages. 
In such situations the stately French sheep ought to 
be and will be, if fairly tried, a favorite and a profita- 
ble animal. 
It isa misfortune to us as a farming people, that, 
growing up without the local traditions and preju- 
dices so common in older nations, we have no dams 
and bulkheads to arrest the currents of fashion; and 
if a fashion becomes established by the acceptance of 
a majority, it must sweep from the centre to the eir- 
cumference, embracing all places and persons. Are 
the agricultural interests of a majority necessarily 
those of the whole? Are the same cattle and crops 
equally adapted to all soils and climates and markets ? 
Must every change in our agriculture assume the 
form of a manea, and sacrifice every thing that does 
not Jump with its humor? It is time for us to aban- 
don such follies. 
American and Silesian Merino, 
Between the Silesian sheep and the preceding 
varieties, it does not appear to me to be necessary to 
institute any extended comparison. Like the Ameri- 
can Merino, it is the Spanish sheep materially im- 
proved, but not, like the French and Saxon sheep, 
bred away widely from the characteristic features of 
the original race. It is simply an exquisitely high 
bred Spanish sheep, of pure and undoubted descent, 
bred for fifty years to a particular model by two 
breeders, a father and son. Its fleece is decidedly 
