Aug. 17, 1912 
FOREST AND STREAM 
203 
Valuable Fur 
By DR. A. L. LEEDS 
P ROBABLY only a few of the many readers 
of Forest and Stream are acquainted with 
the fact that there is now bred in a few 
places in Texas a real fur-bearing animal. 
Nearly three years ago, at almost a pro¬ 
hibitive expense and after enduring the greatest 
hardships, fifteen head of pure Karakule sheep 
were brought over from Russian Turkestan. 
It is from the breeds produced by crossing 
these sheep with common varieties that the valu¬ 
able skins known as Persian Lamb, Astrachan, 
Krimmer, etc., are produced. 
They differ from common sheep in a great 
many ways, chiefly in that they have immense 
broad flat tails in which they store up vast quan¬ 
tities of fat. They are also absolutely devoid 
of the characteristic smell of common sheep, and 
instead of wool, they have a long coarse hair¬ 
like covering which resembles the coat of some 
wild animal like a Rocky Mountain sheep or 
muskox. Their natural gait is the pace or single 
foot, and in their fondness for dry, coarse food 
they are rivals of the goat and burro. 
People who have eaten the meat of the cross 
breeds say it is nothing like mutton, but is more 
like antelope. 
From the wool of these sheep the famous 
Persian and Bokhara rugs are made. The staple 
is not quite as long as that of a Lincoln or Cots- 
wold. The entire clip was sold a year and a 
half ago to parties in Mexico for forty-two 
cents per pound gold. It was all used for mak¬ 
ing blankets or serapas, as they are called in the 
sister Republic. 
The importer of these sheep, Dr. C. C. 
Young, of Belen, Texas, was born in Bessarabia, 
a Province of Southwestern Russia, where both 
his father and grandfather were engaged in the 
business of raising sheep furs, and found it a 
profitable industry. 
None of the doctor's people ever possessed 
a thoroughbred Karakule, and when as a boy he 
used to tell his father that some day he would 
go to Bokhara and get some of the pure stock, 
the old gentleman treated his remarks with no 
more seriousness than are usually given to the 
talk of children and dreamers. 
Experiments, already made, demonstrate that 
by crossing these sheep with some of the lust¬ 
rous long wool varieties, a fur is produced super¬ 
ior to anything grown in either Asia or Russia. 
Tests made to determine the quality and quan¬ 
tity of mutton, produced by cross breeding, have 
shown an increase in weight from 25 to 35 per 
cent., that lambs mature from two to three 
months earlier are much hardier, and that all 
traces of a sheepy taste to the flesh are elimi¬ 
nated with as little as 25 per cent, of the blood 
of the thoroughbred Karakule. 
It must be understood that the term “Per¬ 
sian Lamb’’ as applied to lamb skins is only a 
trade name, and refers to all black lamb skins, 
which have a close, tight, curly fur, but when 
the curls are open, it is called Astrachan. 
Twenty-five per cent, of Karakule blood will 
produce a black fur, even though the mother 
is white or brown. Naturally the more Kara¬ 
kule blood contained in a graded Asiatic lamb 
skin, the tighter the curl, and the more beautiful 
the fur. 
The so-called Persian broad tail sheep raised 
in several parts of the United States is but a 
graded Karakule sheep, and is the result of a 
cross between a Karakule ram and some tight 
wool breed of common sheep, which greatly in¬ 
terferes with the natural luster of the Karakule, 
and are known in Persia as Doozboy, and are 
not fur-producing sheep, but the Karakule strain 
makes them a hardy and heavy mutton sheep. 
The so-called “Caracul’’ fur sold in this country 
is a misrepresentation made up often of scraps 
of Persian lamb fur, and it is safe to say that 
few. if any, full blood Karakule lamb skins have 
reached the American market. 
The small wild Arabi, or Karakule sheep, is 
practically extinct, although the Uzbecks, of 
Bokhara, claim that some of them still are found 
in a wild state in the Pamirs. The skins of the 
small Arabi are priceless, and are infinitely more 
beautiful than those coming from either the 
large or the intermediate classes of the Kara¬ 
kule family. The latter are more plentiful and 
can be obtained in the deserts of Bokhara, but 
it is almost impossible to procure a wild Arabi. 
It is the intention of the importer to estab¬ 
lish the breeding of these sheep on a sound 
basis throughout the United States, and there 
seems to be no reason why it should not in a 
few years be as well established as the breeding 
of ostriches or angora goats. Half blood Kara- 
kule-Lincoln rams crossed again with any of the 
lustrous long wool varieties of sheep of the 
United States or England produce a fur equal 
to that of Asia, and when we consider that we 
annually import about fourteen million dollars’ 
worth, it is well worth interesting ourselves in 
this new industry. 
How About Our Wild Animals? 
Hudson, N. Y., July 30 . —Editor Forest and 
Stream: Your statement in the last issue that 
the California Fish and Game Commission has 
begun an inquiry into the condition of deer in 
that State leads me to ask: Why don t our 
own Conservation Commission do something of 
the kind? Certainly it would be very interesting 
as well as have no little value to know how our 
own wild animals are getting on. The old Fish 
and Game Commission, which never had any¬ 
where near the resources of the Conservation 
Commission, used to publish a lot of interesting 
facts about Adirondack animals in their annual 
reports. Why they neglected the animals of the 
Catskills did not appear. 
But the Conservation Commission does not 
even keep up the record of deer killed; at least, 
it is not in their report for 1910 or 191T, and 
it was highly interesting to sportsmen. \\ on t 
you try to get the Conservation Commission to 
give us a real animal census this year? They 
can do it easily through their many protectors 
and other employees. It would be as well to 
follow the California plan and set forth the dis¬ 
tribution of the principal wild animals; the num¬ 
ber of each species in each locality; the ratio of 
the sexes; the effect, if any, of killing only male 
deer; the question of cutting hay for deer or 
providing other food; the diseases prevailing, if 
any; and miscellaneous information as to albi¬ 
nism or melanism, freaks, etc. 
The only approach to an attempt at such 
work that I can find in the old reports is when 
Harry Radford tried his hand at a partial census 
years ago. J. B. Atfield. 
Maintain the old customs. Be a subscriber to 
Forest and Stream, as your father was. 
FULL BLOOD KARAKULE LAMBS. 
