130 FINE WOOL SHEEP HUSBANDRY. 
wools. This isin the breed of the sheep. Ohio has 
a smaller proportion of the heavy fleeced yolky Meri- 
nos than New York,* and New York a less propor- 
tion (though a larger number in the aggregate) than 
‘Vermont. 
The uses of yolk have been stated by all writers to 
render the wool pliant and to promote its growth. 
* According to the census of 1850, the average weight of fleeces in 
Ohio fell not greatly below that of New York; but that, I take it, 
was owing to the fact that the common, low grade, diy-wooled 
farmer’s sheep of Ohio are larger and heavier fleeced animals than 
those of New York. If limestone land and water, feeding on stub- 
bles, etc., either increases the yolk (which is very doubtful) or 
increases the amount of dirt caught and retained by the yolk; and if 
limestone water fais to remove these as thoroughly as soft water (both 
of which are undoubtedly facts), then much of the grain growing por- 
tions of both Ohio and New York should produce heavier washed or 
unwashed fleeces than New England, or than the southern tier coun- 
ties of New York; and soI have no doubt they would, if all other 
circumstances were made strictly equal. On the best wheat lands of 
New York, sheep do not require to be fed on stubbles to get dirty. 
Those lands are generally seeded down with red clover, which does 
not, under any circumstances, form so close a sod as the timothy, June 
grass, white clover, etc., of the grazing regions, and particularly not 
where it is broken up every two or three years in the usual way for 
grain. It is rare to see a clover pasture in the grain regions closcly 
fed down, where the ground is not in every direction visible between 
the stools of clover; and the sharp hoofs of the sheep loosen the dirt 
in summer, so that in one way or another it soils the surface of the 
wool. In the old pastures of many portions of New England and our 
own southern counties, it would be difficult to see the ground on one 
hundred acres. Unless the sheep have it blown on them from the roads 
or plowed fields, by the winds, they scarcely come in contact with a 
particle of dirt during the summer. These facts explain the differences 
in the color of the sheep in the two regions. The violent and pouring 
rains of the Southern States prevent a great accumulation of either 
yolk or dirt, so that all Merino sheep from the North grow lighter 
colored there, and chmate may add to the effect. 
