24 
SHEEP HUSBANDRY IN SPAIN. 
The following sketches relative to the origin, na¬ 
ture, management and other circumstances connected 
with Merino sheep, are from the pen of one who 
Was the son of a farmer, and educated as such. As 
he has travelled extensively in Spain and other parts 
of Europe, and writes from personal observation, and 
an intercourse with Spanish shepherds and flock mas¬ 
ters, we think his articles will be found highly valu¬ 
able to all engaged in the business of sheep husband¬ 
ry, and bespeak for them an attentive perusal. 
SHEEP HUSBANDRY IN SPAIN.—No. 1. 
The Sheep, from remote antiquity, has continued 
to contribute greatly to the wants and comforts of 
man ; and, at the present time, is more extensively 
employed in the economy of the human race than 
any other animal. Although attempts have been 
made to trace the varieties constituting our domestic 
breeds to their original stock, it never has satisfacto¬ 
rily been done, and perhaps it is impossible ever to 
arrive at an accurate conclusion in regard to them. 
The Musmon of Pliny ( Ovis musmon ) at present 
found wild in the desert parts of the mountains in 
the south of Spain, Ivica, Corsica, Sardinia, and 
some other islands in the Mediterranean, as well 
as in European Turkey; the Asiatic Argali ( Ovis 
ammon ) which inhabits the more elevated tracts of 
Asia, Caucasus, and the plains of Siberia; and the 
Bearded Argali ( Ovis tragelaphus ) of the mountains 
of Northern Africa, claim to assist us in producing 
our present breeds, and have generally been consider¬ 
ed as their most probable origin. 
In Spain there are, at present, two domestic breeds 
of sheep, which differ widely from one another, both 
in their habits and in the properties of their wool. 
One kind has, for a long period, existed in the warm¬ 
er parts of that country, and is known by their long, 
coarse, hairy wool; and the other, which migrates 
every spring from the plains and valleys of Andalu¬ 
sia, Estremadura, Murcia, Valencia, and Catalonia, 
to the cool mountains of Old Castile and Arragon, 
where they pass the summer, and return again in 
autumn to feed, during winter, on the warm plain’s 
below. The latter, which includes the pure Merino 
(Ovis aries hispanica ), are distinguished from the 
common sheep, by a loose skin hanging from their 
necks, and in having wool on their foreheads and 
cheeks, and frequently down their legs nearly to 
their hoofs. The horns of the males are very large 
and ponderous, and are usually rolled laterally, one 
part over another. Their wool is long, fine, and soft, 
and is twisted into glossy, spiral ringlets; it naturally 
contains a large proportion of oil, to which dust and 
other impurities adhere, and give to the animals a 
dingy and unclean appearance, that conveys to the 
casual observer an idea of inferiority; but, on part¬ 
ing it, all doubts are immediately removed, when its 
unsullied purity and fineness are brought to view. 
There also exist, in Spain, several intermediate 
breeds, among which are the Pyrenean races, with 
remarkably fine woo!, and somewhat resembling those 
on the South Downs of England. In general, they 
are polled; but some have horns, which turn behind 
the ears, and in the males, project forward half a 
circle. Their legs, which are short, are white or red¬ 
dish ; their faces speckled, and in some, a small tuft 
of wool grows on their foreheads. Their color varies 
from white to a reddish yellow, and in a few instan¬ 
ces they are entirely black. There is also anothei 
race in Biscay, which have from four to six horns, 
but they are not of the fine-wooled variety. 
As my remarks will be chiefly confined to the Me¬ 
rino breeds, it may not be uninteresting to offer a few 
suggestions relative to their origin and the fineness ol 
their wool. “ At a certain time,” says Columella, 
who wrote on husbandry more than 1800 years ago 
“ when some wild fierce rams of a wonderful color, 
as other beasts, were brought from the neighboring 
parts of Africa, to the municipal city of Cadiz, by 
those who entertained the people with public games 
and shows, Marcus Columella, my uncle, a man of 
quick discerning genius, and a famous husbandman, 
having bought some of them, carried them to his own 
lands, and when they were tamed, admitted them to 
couple with covered sheep. These, at first, brought 
forth rough bristly lambs, but of the color of their 
sire; and afterwards they themselves, being put upon 
Tarentinian or Greek sheep, generated rams of a fine 
fleece. Moreover, whatever was afterwards conceiv¬ 
ed by them, resembled the color of the siie and 
grandsire, but the delicacy and softness of the dam.” 
in this manner Columella said that any colors oi 
outward appearance whatsoever, that was in beasts, 
did return with a mitigation of their fierceness and 
wildness, through the several degrees of their de¬ 
scendants ; and in buying flocks, the following are 
the things, for the most part, which he thinks ought 
to be observed in common. “ If the whiteness of 
the wool pleases you most, you shall always choose 
the whitest males; for, of a white male, there is 
often produced a dark tawny offspring; but that 
which is white is never generated by one that is red 
or black.” The example of Columella, of importing 
African rams, was repeated by Don Pedro II. king of 
Arragon, in the early part of the Xlllth century, and 
afterwards by Cardinal Ximenes, prime minister of 
Spain, and to that epoch is to be ascribed the superi¬ 
ority of Merino wool over that of all other domestic 
breeds. With regard to the cause of this superiority, 
some impute it to the sheep passing their lives in the 
open air in a dry and equable climate; others to the 
nature of the soil and vegetation upon which they 
feed, and to their migrating semi-annually from one 
part of the country to another; and a third class to 
the peculiar manner of smearing their backs at a cer¬ 
tain period, a process hereafter to be described; but 
it is most probable that they do not so much owe the 
fineness and quality of their wool to the reasons 
above assigned, as to the uniform, systematic and 
unceasing care with which they are managed through 
every stage of their existence, and the pure, unmixed 
and isolated condition in which each flock is kept 
from generation to generation. For it appears as a 
matter of certainty, that the sole design of removing 
these sheep from one district to another, is to feed; 
and it is equally certain that these journeys never 
would be undertaken, if a sufficiency of good pastur¬ 
age could be found in one place during the year; 
and, besides, it is a noted fact, that there are station¬ 
ary flocks in the' plains of Estremadura, where frost 
is seldom seen, and about the mountains of Old Cas¬ 
tile, where snow often falls in June, both of which 
produce wool of an equal degree of fineness to that 
of the itinerant flocks that change their quarters every 
six months. In has been asserted, and believed by 
some, although controverted by several well inform- 
