Metlwd of obtaining immediate Fixity of 2^yj)e in SJiecj). 215 



In France such an improvement of a breed in itself or from 

 within has not been even attempted, at least with respect to per- 

 fection of form, power of assimilation (or fattening), and quality 

 of meat. As to the wool, indeed, our breeders of Merinos, while 

 their wool was dear, did aim at increased fineness and evenness of 

 fleece by judicious selection, and in some degree too succeeded. 

 But their success is of little interest now that the price of super- 

 fine wool has been lowered permanently by the multiplication of 

 Merinos without cost on the untenanted pastures of Australasia. 



The most devoted partisans of the Merino breed have now for 

 some time felt the necessity for making up in mutton what they were 

 losing in the price of their wool. This they could hardly effect 

 with that boniest of all races unless by alloying in some degree 

 the purity of its blood. At first this degradation was concealed, 

 but, gradually growing bolder, they pronounced at last the word 

 " cross." Still it was required that the new animal should preserve 

 the Merino countenance, and that its wool, though coarser, should 

 be fit for the same purposes as before. This latter object was much 

 favoured by a natural law, as well as by the progress of manu- 

 factures. In fact, through the improvement of machinery new 

 stuffs are now produced from the coarse wool as delicate as hereto- 

 fore from the fine. 



Hence arose a multiplicity of spurious sheep, denominated justly 

 mongrels^ yielding a wool of little value, that could not be com- 

 pared with the cleaner and stouter wools of Australasia. The 

 two kinds of fleeces show, in fact, the different treatment by 

 which they are produced. Life in the free air and constant 

 pasture, upon the one hand ; on the other, the precarious food, 

 the filth and stench of close yards, to which most of our French 

 flocks are to this day exposed. The depreciation of the wool of 

 the mongrels cannot stop even at its present point, for the product 

 of Australasia must go on increasing under the continuance of 

 peace, and the progress of marine intercourse, which tends to 

 draw closer the communion of nations — as close as that of pro- 

 vinces in the middle ages. But if the wool of our mongrels bears 

 small promise of future profit, those sheep have certainly little 

 to recommend them in point of mutton, which retains the taint 

 of their origin. 



This disfigured foreign race, then, is in the same case with the 

 old native races of our ancient France that have withstood better 

 than she herself has done the endless revolutions of which she 

 has been the sport. These breeds satisfied the simple require- 

 ments of our ancestors, but in our days you might as well try 

 to restore the coarse clothes worn by those ancestors and the 

 frugal life which they led, as propose to satisfy the demands of 

 our manufacturers and the wants of our increased population from 

 breeds with coarse wool and unthrifty frame, subsisting miserably 



