120 
COL. RANDALL S MERINO SHEEP. 
COL. RANDALL’S MERINO SHEEP, 
We have the pleasure of giving our readers the 
following cuts of a Merino buck and ewe, bred and 
owned by Col. H. S. Randall, of Cortland village, 
New York. He has devoted much attention to the 
rearing of fine sheep for several years past, and 
these portraits are considered fair specimens of his 
flock. Col. R’s. sheep are said to be of good me¬ 
dium size, compact and line of form, and of great 
weight for their inches—characteristics, we are free 
to confess, we generally prefer in all animals. 
Another thing, his flock is not so throaty as Me¬ 
rinos were formerly bred, as he considers throatiness 
objectionable. He originally had a few sheep with 
more or less black gum on the ends of their wool, 
but his good sense and fine taste soon convinced 
him that this should be avoided, and he immediately 
discarded all such from his premises. The wool, 
his flock now yields, though oily, (as all choice Me¬ 
rino should be,) isdes- 
titue of concrete gum, The Property of Col. 
either within or on 
the extremities of the 
fleece ; and yet it is 
sufficiently dense to 
shed the rain with¬ 
out the aid of gum. 
The wool opens 
white and lustrous, 
on a mellow, rose- 
colored skin, and is 
of the highest qual¬ 
ity known in" mar¬ 
ket as Merino. The 
fleeces, also, are quite 
even, and entirely 
destitute of hair on 
the thighs and dew¬ 
lap. Some consider 
these small matters, 
but we think them 
of great importance, 
and we trust that the 
good example of Col. 
Randall will be fol¬ 
lowed by other flock 
masters in their 
breeding. We un¬ 
derstand his sheep Fig. 3! 
are pure descendants 
of the early importations by Messrs. Humphrey, 
Jarvis, Crowningshield, &c. For pedigrees and a 
more particular account of the origin of this fine 
flock, see volume third of the Agriculturist, p. 367. 
The buck, Fig. 32, our readers will observe, has 
a slightly lank appearance; but it must be recol¬ 
lected that it is a portrait of a young animal, which, 
as it grows older will become heavier and more 
compact in form. The ewe, Fig. 33, is very fine, 
and breeders will do well to take her portrait into 
consideration in giving shape to their flocks. Col. 
R. informs us that she sheared 7 lbs. 10 oz. of 
wool, well washed on her back, in a clean running 
stream. 
Dr. Emmons, while editor of the American Quar¬ 
terly Journal of Agriculture and Science, gave a 
cut of the measurements of samples of wool taken 
from various flocks. That from a prize ram of 
Col. Randall, the fleece of which weighed 10 lbs. 
well washed, appears to rank favorably for fineness 
with much of our country-bred Saxon wool. 
We now quote from Col. Randall’s -excellent 
work on “ Sheep Husbandry in the South,” which 
we briefly noticed at page 100 of our March num¬ 
ber :— 
“ I have bred Merino sheep for a number of 
years, and latterly in considerable numbers ; and in 
no case have my grown sheep averaged less than 5 
lbs. of well-washed wool per annum. * * * In 
1846, I sold for 35 cents per pound ; in 1845, for 
33f cents ; in 1844, for 48 cents; in 1843, for 33± 
cents; in 1842. for 36 cents, and so on. Togivemore 
precise data, I select the following statement of the 
products of a flock on which I drew the first premium 
offered by the New-York State Agricultural Society, 
for 4 the best managed flock of sheep,’ in 1844 :— 
H. S. Randall, Cortland Village, N. Y, 
Merino Ram, Defiance. 
1 In the winter of 1843-4,1 wintered in a separate 
flock fifty-one ewes over one year old, two ewe 
lambs, two rams, one of them one, and one of them 
two years old. Of the ewes over one year old, 
twenty-eight were full-blood Merinos : twent)-three 
were half-blood Merinos and half-blood South- 
downs; the two ewe lambs were three-fourth-blood 
Merino and one-fourth-blood Southdown ; and the 
two rams were full-blood Merinos. The flotk were 
kept as follows through the winter :—They were 
fed hay morning and night, and were, as a general 
rule, required to eat it up clean. At noon, the 
flock were daily fed three bundles of oats and bar¬ 
ley, (which had grown mixed, say three parts oats 
and one part barley,) until the 25th of December— 
after which they received four bundles of oats. The 
grain was light and shrunken. They received no 
