FINE WOOL SHEEP HUSBANDRY. 109 
In his instance, the guidance of a single intelligent 
will, for upwards of half a century, produced a very 
considerable degree of uniformity in his flock ; but 
will any one now undertake to say that the ultimate 
result of this long labor was an improvement on some 
of the separate original materials of his flock ? 
Would any one now prefer his mixed sheep to de- 
scendants of the Paulars, Negrettis, ete., which he 
chose from the flocks of Spain? 
Crossing, however, between two or three families, 
has sometimes resulted highly favorably. A con- 
siderable majority of the older breeding flocks of 
Vermont and New York are a cross between the 
Paular (Rich) and Infantado (Atwood) sheep. At 
the period that cross commenced, the first had size, 
form, constitution, and long, thick wool. The last had 
fineness, evenness, and style of wool, and an excess of 
yolk. Each was strong in the points where the other 
was most deficient ; and experience soon demonstrated 
that the better qualities of both blended harmoniously 
in their offspring. There is no denying that the pro- 
duce of the cross 1s far superior to either of the orig- 
inal families, as those families were when it com- 
had a darker complexion at their introduction here than subsequent- 
ly, mainly owing to father’s accommodating the manufacturers by bi eed- 
ung in the contrary direction” Here we have the solution of the Es- 
cual cross; and now for the Saxon: “TI have repeatedly heard him 
say his Merino ewes sheared about four pounds till he was persuaded 
hy Mr. Shepherd (Col. James Shepherd, of Northampton, Mags ], the 
great manufacturer of that day, to get some Saxons to cross with, 
as the finest woolwas to be the most demand in future; and as re- 
peatedly heard him end his allusion to the subject by declaring that if 
he had thrown his pocket-book, with the price of the Saxons into the 
Connecticut river, as he was crossing for the purchase of them, he 
should be better off.” 
