FINE WOOL SHEEP HUSBANDRY. 107: 
(between Merino and Ryeland) in fineness, by “ one 
dip” too much “ with the Spaniard !”?* 
Dr. Browne, in his learned “ Tricnotogia. Mam- 
MALIuM,” states that I advised the crossing of the 
South Down and Merino, and wishes to hear “ from 
myself” why I did so, after I had condemned the cross 
between the Leicester and Merino as an “ unquali- 
fied absurdity.” Having never before answered this 
question publicly, I will do so now. I advised it as 
I would advise the Finlander, in a season of famine, 
to continue his practice of mixing pulverized wood 
or straw with meal, if he found it necessary “to fill 
out his stomach;” but I should not tell him that I 
thought the pulverized wood and meal constituted a 
mixture better than all meal, or as good, provided 
both were equally accessible. Where there is a defi- 
ciency of capital to stock wool-growing farms with 
pure Merino sheep, or where the latter cannot be ob- 
tained rapidly enough, it is better to cross coarse 
ewes with Merino lambs, than to leave the land idle. 
In the progress of time the produce will become ex. 
cellent and profitable sheep; but to suppose that the 
produce of the fourth or of the twentieth cross will 
equal pure and properly bred Merinos, is what no 
breeder of ripe experience in the premises ever dream. 
ed of. Base blood runs out rapidly by arithmetical 
calculation ; but practically it stays in, and is ever 
and anon cropping out, by exhibiting the old base 
characteristics, in a way that sets all “ calculation” 
at defiance. The observing Germans have a very 
good way of terming all, even the highest bred mon- 
* See his letter, published in papers of Bath Agricultural Society, 
Vol. X. 
