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UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS
LIBRARY

SPECIAL
COLLECTIONS

SF
375
L78
1809

TREAStJRt ROOM

ESSAY

ON

SHEEP;

THEIR VARIETIES— ACCOUNT OF THE
MERINOES OF SPAIN, FRANCE, &c.

nEFLECTIONS ON THE BEST METHOD OF TREATING THEM,
AND RAISING A FLOCK IN THE UNITED STATES;

TOGETHER WITH

MISCELLANEOUS REMARKS

ON

SHEEP AND WOOLLEN MANUFACTURES.

BY ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON, LL. D.

President of the Society tor the Promotion of Useful Arts, Member of the

American Philosophical Society, President of the American Society

of Fine Arts, Corresponding Member of the Agricultural

Society of the Seine, Honorary Member of the

Agricultural Society of Dutchess County.

printed by Order of the Legislahire of tJie State of J^eiv-York.

J\^EW-YORK:

PRINTED 13Y T. AND J. SWORDS,

No. 160 Pearl-Street,

180C»

43 io.1

L7_4

TREASUHE RO0?i

State of New- York.

In Senate^ March 3d, 1809.

WHEREAS the Honourable Robert R. Livingston
has laid before the Society for the Promotion of Useful
Arts, a manuscript Treatise on Sheep, which the Society-
judge eminently calculated to diffuse general information
as to the best mode of raising and managing the Merino
breed of Sheep, from his own experience, and from the
best treatises on that subject; and whereas, in the opinion
of the said Society, the agricultural interest of this State
would be greatly promoted by the printing and circulating
the said manuscript —

Therefore Resolved^ (if the Honourable the Assembly
concur herein) That one thousand copies of the said manu-
script be printed in such manner as the said Society shall
direct, and that they be distributed in the same manner as
the Laws and Journals are by law directed to be distri-
buted, and that each member of the said Society shall also
be entitled to one copy; and that the remaining copies shall
be at the disposal of the said Society; and that the Legis-
lature will by law make provision for the printing of the
said manuscript.

By order of the Senate.

S. VISSCHER, Clerk.

In Assembly, March 7th, 1809.

Resolved, That this House do concur with the Honour-
able the Senate in their preceding resolution.

By order of the Assembly,

D. RODMAN, Clerk.

( 4 )

Copy of a Resolution of the Society for the Promotion of
Useful Arts,

Resolved^ That the Vice-President be requested to trans-
mit to the Honourable Robert R. Livingston, Esq. the
concurrent resolutions of the Senate and Assembly for
publishing his Treatise on Sheep, and request him to su-
perintend the pubhcation thereof by such Printer as he
shall choose ; and that he direct five hundred copies, in
addition to those ordered by the resolutions, to be pub-
lished for the Society.

A true copy.

JAMES LOW, Secretary,
Albany^ March Sth, 1809.

PREFACE

1 HE hope of acquiring such information in agricuU
ture and the arts as would be useful to my fellow citi-
zens, was not one of my smallest motives for accept-
ing a foreign mission. Without seeing Europe it was
impossible justly to estimate the assertion of travellers
relative to the arts and agriculture of that interesting
country, to distinguish the truths from the falsehoods
contained in the infinity of books that treat of those
subjects, or to adapt their precepts to the soil, climate,
and habits of the United States. And it is no small
source of happiness to me to believe, that however my
public service may be appreciated, my pursuits in
what may be thought a more humble line, are not al-
together useless.

Having urged my fellow citizens to give some at-
tention to the fine arts, and pointed out the easiest
means of doing it, I see, with pleasure, other popu-
lous cities in my native country following the exam-

6 PREFACE.

pie set them (upon my suggestion) by New-York, in
the establishment of academies for the fine arts. My
ambition, however, leads me to render myself more
extensively useful, by suggesting and enforcing such
improvements in agriculture as may add to the wealth
of individuals, and, by forming the basis of manu-
factures, to the independence of our country\ My
occupations in Paiis kept mc from collecting all the
information on that subject which I could have wish,
ed; yet some things I have noted in the countries I
have hastily visited, which, I trust, may furnish useful
hints, and lead to useful experiments. Among other
objects, my attention was forcibly attracted to one that
at present occupies not only the agriculturalists, but
the statesmen of Europe, It was long thought that
the Merino sheep could only be raised advantageously
in Spain, and that their migration w^as necessary to
the perfection of their wool. Under the influence of
this opinion, the rest of Europe submitted to be tri-
butaries of Spain for this precious commodity; and
so slow is the progress of agricultural improvements,
that though an enlightened Swedish nobleman natu-
ralized them eighty years ago, in a country litde con-
genial to their native habits, yet it was long before
his successful experiments excited public attention,
France, after some abortive attempts, succeeded so
fully as to open the eyes of the neighbouring nations.
I saw and admired her beautiful flocks; and the in-
quiries I had the means of making of intelligent men
from different parts of Europe, convinced me, that
instead of degenerating, tliey h;.id improved in every
region to which they had been transported. Knowing

PREFACE. 7

the United States to be peculiarly adapted to short
woolled sheep, I was eager to put them in possession
of this invaluable stock. And I shall not envy the
glory of the Argonauts (which probably consisted in
bringing the fine woolled Miligrelian sheep into Greece)
if I can successfully plant the Merinoes of Spain in
my native land.

It unfortunately so happened, that during the greater
part of my mission, a number of my fellow citizens
were suitors at Paris for debts unjustly withheld; for
relief from embarrassments into which the perplexed
and ever- varying laws of trade, and in too many in-
stances their own imprudence, involved them. As few
days past in which I had not either justice or favours
to ask for others, I thought it improper to ask the lat-
ter for myself, but hoped to attain my object (more
gradually indeed), by selecting two pair of the finest
Merinoes I could find, and sending them over under
the care of one of my own servants; believing that so
small a shipment w^ould not be noticed, and intending
to follow them by others. They arrived in safety in
the spring of 1802, and were, I believe, the first couples
ever imported into the United States. I became less
anxious on the subject, because I had the satisfaction
to leani that Col. Humphi^eys liad succeeded, some
time afterwards, in introducing a much greater num-
ber, direct from Spain, so that I believed a founda-
tion was laid for their perfect establishment. After
my return from Italy, being no longer in office, I
obtained permission to ship others that Mr. Chaptal
allowed me to select out of the highest bred Rock in
France. A variety of circumstances have hitherto

8 PREFACE.

prevented their arrival; but I still have the hope of
seeing them here, with their increase since I pur-
chased.

I was astonished when I found upon my return, in
1805, that the introduction of Merino sheep had ex-
cited little attention ; and that although the Legislature
of Connecticut had very properly noticed the patriotic
exertions of Col. Humphreys, none of his sheep had
been sold in this State. I had also the mortifi (nation to
find, that notwithstanding my injunctions, mine had
been much less extended than I expected. Nay, I
learned with surprise, that a flock which consisted of
near one hundred of one-half and three-fourths breed
Merinoes, from a ram sent over by M. Delessert to
his farm at Rosendale, near Kingston, had been sold
at vendue at a price inferior to that of common sheep,
and that above one half of them had perished from
neglect the following winter. Such is commonly the
case when novelties are introduced in agriculture, till
the mind of the husbandman is prepared for their re-
ception. I knew the importance of the object, and I
resolved to leave no means unessayed to convince my
fellow citizens of it. I began by purchasing all I
could find of the scattered remnant of M. Delessert's
flock. I picked up twenty-four ewes, and the price
I paid for them attracted the notice of those who had
seen and neglected them.

In 1806 I submitted to the Society of Useful Arts
two essays on the subject of Merino sheep. They
were received with a degree of attention Avhich ex-
ceeded my hopes. The enlightened fuimers were
awakened to the su]:>ject, and the Legislature stepped

PREFACE. %

forward aiid seconded their ai dour by judicious en-
couragements.

Numbers of my fellow citizens are now endeavour-
ing to supply themselves wiih his invaluable stock;
and mciny who had never given the least attention to
sheep, are extending their ciu-e to Merino flocks.

Findhig myself frequently called upon for informa-
tion, and being anxious to communicate all that my
experience or inquiries had taught me upon the sub-
ject, as well as to keep alive the interest that I had
happily excited in my fellow citizens, I believed
that both might be effected by the publication of a
little volume which should in some sort combine in-
formation with amusement, and, taken in connection
with what I had before written, serve as a kind of
Shepherd's Manual, and point out to the rich and the
poor farmer the easiest means of converting their
flocks into Merinoes, as well as the advantage that
w ould accrue both to themselves and their country by
the change. I have endeavoured, in the execution of
this work, to render the style as simple as the subject
of which it treats; to sketch the natural histor>^ of
sheep in that rapid manner which would serve to
satisfy a plain farmer, without swelling the work with
disquisitions adapted to the taste of the experienced
naturalist. I am extremely flattered by the attention
the Legislature and the Society of Useful Arts have
shown it, in deeming it sufficiently import^ait to be
printed at the public expense. Should it contribute
to the extension of the Merino sheep, to the mutual
advantage of the agriculturalist and the manufacturer,
it will be very consoling to me to believe, after having

2

10 PREFACE.

devoted the prime of my life to promote the political
interest of my country, that its decline is not abso-
lutely useless; and that those whose fathers have shar-
ed in the labow^s of my youth, will receive some ad-
A^antage from the amusements of my age.

ESSAY ON SHEEP

There are few studies more generally amus-
ing than those which relate to natural history,
or rather to that branch of it which comprises
the history of animals; it is sufficiently simple
to be embraced by the untutored mind, and
yet so comprehensive as to employ the faculties
of the most elevated. The first will be enter-
tained by the more obvious characters of the
animal he considers, by its innocence or its fe-
rocity, by its manners, its habits, and the in-
stincts which lead it to provide for its wants
and those of its ofispring. A more profound
philosopher will carry his views further; he
will analyze the reason or the instincts of the
animal, will examine the internal structure,
and will admire the wonderful harmony that
exists in the several parts of his body, and the
analogy that is found between these and its
manner of life. He will be insensibly led from
the examination of the creature to a contem-
plation of the Creator, and will acknowledge

12 Essay on Sheep.

his wisdom, and his goodness, in having exactly
adapted the corporeal and mental faculties of
every animal to the station he has be^n pleased
to a^*<ign it in the scale of beings.

While the pride of man is humbled by the
reflection, that the most profound works of art
are but feeble imitations of nature, he will
derive some consolation froin the con'^ideration,
that God has condescended in some sort to ren*
der him his agent, and to give him extensive
powers over the animal and vegetable creation;
not only in subjecting them to his control, but
even in enabling him, within certain limits,
to change and alter their natures, so as better
to adapt them to his own use, without subject-
ing them too far to his whims. The various
species of grain and fruit that make his food,
are no where to be found wild, but have been
brought to their present state of perfection by
the care and cultivation of man.

The flowers that bloom in the desert (with
very few exce])tions) are small and pale, for
the most part single, and but slightly fragrant:
to the culture of man they owe their brilliant
and varied colours, their rich profusion of
petals, and their high and grateful fragrance.
Domestic birds and beasts change and vary their
colours either to gratify his fancy, or to afford

Essay on Sheep. IS

him natural marks by which to designate his
property; while, in their native state, they wear
an unvaried uniform, with now and then such
an exception to this rule, as to aftbrd a hint to
man, and the means of grafting a permanent
change upon accidental varieties.

The power of man to effect useful altera-
tions in the animal creation, is in nothing more
obvious than in those which sheep have under-
gone. It is impossible to see this animal over-
loaded with wool, slow in its movements, and
possessed of no means of defence against its
numerous enemies, without being convinced
that such an animal could never exist in a state
of nature. That it must therefore owe its im-
perfections to man, as it pays him by those very
imperfections for his support and protection.

I have thought that the natural history of
this animal, with an account of its varieties,
would not be uninteresting to my fellow citi-
zens; more particularly if it was accompanied
by such didactic remarks as would contribute
to the improvement and perfection of the breed
in such manner as to enable us to draw the
greatest profit from it.

It will easily be conceived, that little new
can be offered relative to a quadruped that has
iso long lived under the care and observation of

14- Essay on Sheep.

man ; but it will certainly be useful to bring
together the observations that have been made
by different men at different periods, and to
comprise in one little volume what must now
be sought in various and expensive collections,
written in different languages, and for the most
part out of the reach of those of my fellow
citizens to whom this is addressed.

1 have already observed, that an animal which
propagates slowly, which has no means of de-
fence, and which invites by its extreme timidity
the attack of its enemies, without possessing
the agility to avoid them, could never have
existed under its present form in a savage state,
but must at all times have owed its protection
to man. Should any country in which sheep
exist be depopulated, the total extinction of the
race would follow the depopulation : we must
then seek for the original stock, or prototype of
sheep, in some quadruped which possesses force,
address, or agility enough to enable it to exist
without the aid of man. Some have sought
this in the goat; but this is evidently a distinct
animal, though very nearly related; since the
he goat will produce with the ewe a lamb
without wool, that will be productive. But the
ram will not impregnate a she goat, which
marks an obvious distinction in the race, and

Essay 071 Sheep, 15

shows that the sheep is more degenerate than
the goat. Besides that, the goat is evidently-
descended from the Bouquetin, which appears
to me to resemble the tame goat so strongly,
that I have not been able to remark any differ-
ence in their looks, in their habits, or in their
musky smell ; except that the Bouquetin* is
a larger and stronger animal than any species
of domestic goat that I have seen. The horns
also form a characteristic difference between
the sheep and the goat. Buffon, and all natu-
ralists since him, have supposed the Mouflon
Musmon, or what is sometimes called the
Argali, and which Linnaeus distinguishes by
the name of Ammon,-}- to form the stock from
which the different varieties of domestic sheep
have originated. Indeed, the resemblance of
this animal to the sheep is so striking, that
the Russians call it by the name of the Wild
Ram. But it resembles the sheep as the vigour
of manhood resembles the feebleness of infancy,
or the decrepitude of age. The one possesses
force, strength, activity; it can defend itself
against the weaker animals, and elude the pur-
suit of the strong; while the other can neither
fight or fly; but, without other defence than

* Kircus Svlvestris aut Ibex. f Ovis Ammon;

1^ Kssay on Sheep.

its innocence, would soon be destroyed by tbat
numerous host to which this is the feeblest of
arms, if the utility of the race had not consti-
tuted man at once its tyrant and protector.

Pliny says that in the island of Corsica there
is a species of Musmones not unlike sheep,
whose covering is more like the shag of goats
than the wool of sheep; and that the product
of this animal with the common sheep was an-
ciently called Umbri. From this circumstance
it may be inferred, not only that they were oc-
casionally mixed, but that the mixed race were
so common as to merit a distinct name. This
animal is not, however, coniined to the island
of Corsica; it is at this day to be found in all
the uncultivated parts of the islands in the Ar-
chipelago, in Greece, in Sardinia, and in the
north-eastern parts of Europe and Asia, even
in Kamschatka and Siberia.* The following

* Pennant seems to think that it is also found in America, and, in proof
of it, he says he lias received from thence a fine fringe of twisted woolj
which had ornamented the dress of an inhabitant of Red Jack, presented
by Dr. Pallas, and that he had himself received another from the habit of
an American of latitude 50. The first was white, and of unparalleled
fineness; the other as fine, but a pale brown. The first he suj)i)osed the
wool which grows intermixed with hair on the Argali, and the other to
have been from the coat of the Musk Bull, which is a native of our coun-
try, and covered v/ith extremely fine long hair, and beneath that a coat
of very fine wool. The domestication of this animal would merit legisla-
tive attention. The missionaries to California in 1697, describe two dis-
tinct animals, with u head like a deer, and the horns of a ram, which
they say were furnished with very good wool, and which they called Wild
Sheep. Th.ese were doubtless the Musmones or Argali.

Essay on Sheep, 17

passage, translated from Professor Pallas*s
voyages, will serve as a full description of the
animal. After noticing a summons that he had
received from his troop of huntsmen who had
killed a wild sheep and lamb, he describes the
first in the following words: " 1 he wild sheep
called Argali by the Monguls, is stronger than
a fallow deer, and wciglis about 20 poud (or
660 lb). The ram weighs more, because his
horns, when full grown, weigh sometimes
more than a poud {3S lb); he is higher upon
his legs than a tame sheep, and also more massy.
I could remark but little difference in the for-
mation of the head. The Argali has small up-
right ears. The horns of the female are of a
middling size, and form crescents; they are also
flat, with two bkmt angles over the back, but
the lower part forms a sharp angle in front.
The horns of the male become enormous, and
form a spiral on each side of the head, as those
of the European ram; the tail is short, and
the hoof like that of the common sheep; in
winter the hair is long and frizzled, and mixed
with much wool ; on the contrary, it is short
and smooth in summer. The old sheep had
already (i^2d July) lost their winter coat, at
least very little of it remained; their colour is
an ash grey. This animal keeps upon moun-

18 Essay on Sheep.

tains that are dry, desert, and free from wood^
and upon rocks on which he finds acrid and
bitter plants. The ewes lamb before the snows
are entirely melted. The lambs resemble
young roebucks. Their horns appear on their
birth; their hair is soft, woolly, frizzled, and
of a deep grey. The stag is not so wild as
the Argali; it is almost impossible to approach
him; when pursued he makes many turns to
the right and to the left, and it often happens,
when he finds no rocks or eminences to hide
In, he turns upon his steps and passes before
the face of his pursuers. He is astonishingly
light and swift in the course, and can support
a long pu**suit. But, however wild this sheep
may be, in its infancy the lambs are easily
tamed, and habituated to drink milk and eat
hay. The soldiers employed on the out posts
have frequently ascertained this by experi-
ments."

It is observable, that though there are strong
marks of diflbrence between the Mouflon and
the domestic sheep, yet there are also strong
points of resemblance. The first has been
diminished by cultivation as inconvenient, while
the last has been improved on account of its
utility. As this quadruped has probably been
found throughout all the mountainous parts of

Essay on Sheep. \^

Europe and Asia, and perhaps even in Africa;
as its young are easily tamed; as its milk, its
flesh, and its skin are extremely valuable to man
in a savage state, it is highly probable that it
was among the first quadrupeds that were do-
mesticated; and, from this circumstance, it has
perhaps wrought no less change in man, than
man has in it. What respect do we not owe it,
if, as is highly probable, we are indebted to it for
the conversion of man from the wild and vi^an-
dering savage, to the mild and gentle shepherd !
The horse, the bull, and the camel, were proba-
bly conquests subsequently made over the ani-
mal creation, because it required more strength
and skill to tame and render them useful; but
the young Mouflon was soon tamed ; the female
savage that followed her husband to the chace
snatched it from its bleeding dam, pressed it to
her bosom, and became its mother; it sported
with her children, and taught them to love a race
which they had hitherto pursued only to destroy,
A slight ray of reason must have shown the sa-
vage how much less precarious his subsistence
would be, if he could draw it from an animal
that fed at the door of his hut, than if he was
compelled to seek it in the chace. He would
extend his flock; he would cease to trespass up-
on the hunting grounds of others; but he would

20 Essay on Sheep,

appropriate a portion for the support of his
flock; he would compound with his tribe; or
the whole tribe, going into the same culture,
would mark out limits which they would not
suffer to be trespassed upon ; they would unite
for common defence; the rights of property
would be known, and a nation be formed
where before only wandering hordes had ex-
isted. By what simple means does providence
produce the greatest good? That we are not at
this moment iierce, savage, and brutal, little
superior to the beasts that roam in the wilder-
ness, and only employing that little superiority
in their destruction, and in the destruction of
each other, is probably owing to the domestica-
tion of graminivorous animals, and, first of all, to
that of sheep. To them we are also indebted for
some of the most pleasing, as well as for the most
important and useful arts. The cradle of music
and poetry was rocked by the shepherds of Ar-
cadia; while the spindle and thedistaff, the wheel
and the loom, originated in the domestication
of sheep. This little animal then, in losing its
own wild nature, has not only converted the
savage into the man, but has led him from one
state of civilization to another; the fierce hun-
ter it has changed into the mild shepherd, and
the untutored shepherd into the more polished

Essay on Sheep. 21

manufacturer. The more sedentary men be-
came, the greater were their wants and depen-
dence upon each other; and In those wants
and that dependence originated civihzation
and polished societies.

The sheep which approaches nearest to the
original stock, and has suffered less by the art
of man, is the Adiman or African sheep.
These are large, active, and covered with hair
without any intermixture of wool. It is ob-
servable, that the Mouflon or Argali has a fleece
composed of hair and wool in the cold climate
of Tartary ; yet those in warmer climates have
no wool. It is probably from this stock that
the sheep of Guinea have been reared ; and as
they belonged to a people to whom woollen
clothing would be of no use, who formerly
went naked, and if they now wear a slight and
partial covering, it consists of lighter materials
than wool would afford; it is, therefore, not sur-
prising that they have not added to the degene-
racy of their flocks by rendering them wool-
bearers. Half savage themselves, they are
content that their domestic animals should re-
semble them; since in that state they are fitter
to furnish food than if part of their suste-
nance went also to the supply of clothing.
It is generally supposed that the want of wool

22 Essay on Sheep,

is the natural effect of the climate; and that
the wool-bearing sheep, upon being transported
to low latitudes, loose their wool, and acquire
hair; and the smooth skinned sheep that are
found in most of the West-India islands are
adduced as a proof of this theory.

1 will not pretend to say that climate, in a
long series of years, may not produce a change
in the nature of quadrupeds; but if it does, I
believe it must operate very slowly, and much
more gradually than is generally supposed.
The hairy sheep* that are found in most of the
islands appear to me to bear evident marks of
.African origin; like those, the rams and ewes
have a kind of dewlap of long hair pendant
from their necks; they are larger and more ac-
tive than the common European sheep. It is
certainly not to be wondered at, that countries
which maintain a constant intercourse with
Guinea should have brought over their sheep
as well as their men, and, as this breed are
better adapted to a warm climate than the sheep
of Europe, they have probably become the
pred eminent sheep in the islands; though there
are, in many of them, wool-bearing sheep,
which remain unaltered, except by mixture of

* Ovls Aries Guiniencis,

Essay on Sheep. iS

their blood with that of the Guinea sheep. I
have myself had occasion to make some expe-
riments in those sheep, three of which were
sent me by my worthy friend Mr. Kerby, from
the island of Antigua. I had these several
years without observing that any sensible change
was produced by exposure to the air during our
cold winters, except that, like the Argali, they
acquired, the first winter, a coat of very short
and fine wool below their hair, which fell off*,
together with the hair, as the summer heats came
on, when they acquired a new coat of hair
only; and, as winter approached, this was again
thickened by an under stratum of very fine
short wool. These sheep are then the Argali,
but moderately degenerated. Indeed, it would
appear a little extraordinary, if the climate that
converts the hair of man into wool, should, by
some retrograde movement, change the wool
of sheep into hair. The next in order, in
point of degeneracy from the original stock,
is the sheep of Iceland.* Like the Argali,
they have two coats; one of extremely coarse
hair, which hardly merits the name of wool,
and another beneath it of a softer and finer
quality, but so mixed as to make it impossible

* Ovis Aries Polycerata. Lin.

24 Essay oji Sheep,

to separate them. These sheep partake of the
hardiness of the parent stock. The large horns
pecuHar to the Argali is not, indeed, found
among them in the same form, but it is broken
down into several smaller branches. Most of
them carry four, and many five horns of con-
siderable size, and always spiral. What is re-
markable, and shows that this circumstance is
owing to the address of man, and not to the
effects of climate, is, that when the common
sheep are brought to Iceland, their horns di-
minish or disappear altogether; this, at least,
is affirmed by V. Bomari. The Iceland flocks
are never stabled, but seek their food by fol-
lowing the horses and eating the grass and moss
that they uncover; their own feet being too
feeble to dig the snow. Their shelter is the
jutting rocks, or mountain's caverns. At the
approach of a snow storm they run violently
towards the sea, and are sometimes precipitated
into it by each other. They have probably
learned from experience that the sea softens the
rigour of the air, and that the snow is sooner
dissolved in its vicinity than upon the moun-
tains. If they are surprized by a snow storm
before they can reach the coast, they turn their
heads toward each other, and patiently expect,
under their fleecy covering, the aid of their

Essay on Sheep. 2&

owners, who do not fail to search for and re-
lieve them as soon as possible. They distin-
guish the spot in which they are buried by an
exhalation which arises from their breath. If
this aid is so long delayed as to sul)ject the
sheep to the danger of starving, they recipro-
cally feed upon each others fleece. This race
is extended through the Danish islands; where
it is equally neglected during the winter; and
their instincts improve by this neglect. They
keep each other warm by pressing close to-
gether when the bleak winds pinch them; and
those from the centre relieve in turn, those
who, in the outer part of the circle, are ex-
posed to the severity of the blast: thus neces-
sity sharpens the invention of beasts as well as
of men. Left to themselves, and compelled
to rely upon their own resources, they know
how to call them forth; while our helpless
sheep, who rely wholly upon the attention of
their keepers, will frequently suffer from cold,
rain, and snow, without moving into the shel-
ter that is provided for them.

I find in the Supplement to Buffon the draw-
ing of another species of sheep, which he calls
the Wallachian Sheep, but it is accompanied by
no description. It is the sheep called the Strep-
siceros or Cretan Sheep, and only diifers Ixom

4

26 Essay on Sheep,

the common sheep in having horns spiral, and
growing upright. This sheep has in Wallachia
and Hungary an undulated wool, which is valu-
able for peltries; but I imagine this is rather the
effect of art than nature, for I find that the mon-
gul Tartars make use of the following means
to have their peltries of this sort. The lambs
have naturally with them, as they frequently
have with us, a kind of wave or curl in their
wool when they are first dropped. In order
to improve this, and to render it permanent,
they cover the lamb with a linen coat, tied close
about the body. This they water frequently with
warm water, and loose it occasionally as the
lamb increases in size. When it has attained
the necessary perfection, of which they judge
by inspection, they kill the lamb. These skins
are more valuable than any of the furs, ex-
cept those of the Sable. It might be worth
the trial here upon some of our lambs whose
wool is most curled and waved when they are
dropped. By this means a new source of profit
might be derived from this useful animal; nor
would the flesh be lost: a lamb is fit for the ta-
ble at a month old. I have seen hundreds of
them sold by butchers at Naples much younger.
There, as in Spain, where they have migrating
(locks,, probably half the lambs are killed. In

Essay on Sheep. 27

Spain every lamb of the migrating flock has,
besides his natural, a foster mother. In order
to induce the last to take the lamb, the skin of
that which has been killed is put upon the one
to be raised, and, in this disguise, she mistakes
it for her own, and gets familiarized to it in a
few days. This does not, indeed, always suc-
ceed. When it does not, the shepherd compels
her to admit the lamb by tying her.

The race of sheep thatl shall next notice, is
one that is more extensively diffused than any
other, since it is found throughout Asia, and a
great part of Africa, as well as through the
north-eastern parts of Europe. I refer to the
broad -tailed sheep.* These differ, as the ordi-
nary European race, in the nature of their co-
vering. In Madagascar, and some other hot
climates, they are hairy; at the Cape of Good-
Hope they are covered with coarse harsh wool;
in the Levant their wool is extremely fine, or,
in other words, they are adapted to the neces-
sities of the people by whom they have been
changed from their wild to their domestic state.
These sheep are generally larger than those of
Europe, in which circumstance only, and the
form and size of their tails, they differ from

* Ovis Aries Laticandata.

28 Essay on Sheep n

them. The broad-tailed sheep are of three
species. In the one the tail is not only broad but
long, and so weighty that the shepherds are
compelled to place two little wheels under it
to enable the sheep to drag it. These tails are
said sometimes to weigh from forty to fifty
pounds. Another species have the tail broad
and flat, but not very long, covered with wool
above, but smooth below, and divided by a
furrow^ into two lobes of flesh ; these are also said
to weigh above thirty pounds: I should not
however, estimate the weight of those which
I saw in the menagery at Paris, at more than
ten or twelve pounds. In some species a small
thin tail projects from the centre of this fleshy
excrescence. The composition of this excres-
cence is said to be a mixture of flesh with a
great proportion of fat, and to be very delicate
food; but the animal has little other fat, the
tail being in him the repository of that fat
which lays about the loins of other sheep. In
cold climates the fat of the tail resembles suet;
but in warm ones, as at the Cape of Good-
Hope, Madagascar, &c. it is so soft, that when
melted it will not harden again. The inhabitants
mix it with tallow in certain proportions, when
it a^>umes the consistency of hog's lard, and is
then eaten like butter, or used for culinary pur-

Essay on Sheep. 29

poses. Naturalists imagine that this excrescence
is owing to some circumstance in the food of
the sheep, which makes the fat fall down from
the loin into the tail, and thus occasions this
monstrosity. I do not, however, think this
probable, since the prodigious extent of coun-
try through which this race is propagated, must
render the food as various as the climates in
which they are bred. I rather think, that it
owes its origin to the art of man, grounded
upon some of those sports of nature, which,
in all domestic animals, afford a basis whereon
to ingraft his whims. The broad-tailed sheep
does not differ more from the Argali, than the
white fan-tailed pigeon does from the wild
blue European pigeon from which it origi-
nally descended ; or than the little hairless
smooth-skinned Turkish cur, from the rough
shepherd's dog, the common ancestor of his
race. It may be asked, to what end would
man cultivate this deformity, and that too
through so extensive a region as to forbid our
attributing it to whim or fashion? May not
the shepherd who first observed this lusus na-
turae in his flock have concluded, that he had
made a very valuable acquisition, since he not
only had a sheep that gave him as much wool,
milk or flesh as the rest of his flock, but a tail.

30 Essai/ on Sheep.

which, in addition, gave him a comfortable
meal, or what is still more valuable among
savages, plenty of grease for his toilet and his
kitchen ? This circumstance alone would make
him attentive to cherish and propagate the de-
formity; and the rather, as he must soon have
found that it was attended with another import-
ant advantage; the sheep being more un wield-
ly, would be less apt to stray or return to its
savage state; an object of considerable import-
ance in the early state of society. We find at
this moment a deformity in sheep cultivated
with attention among ourselves. An accidental
variety of sheep have been found here with
short crooked legs, such, in fact, as to cripple
them, and to make motion, as I should think,
painful to them. These, called the Otter Sheep,
are valued for this deformity, because it disa-
bles them from straying or leaping over walls
or fences ; and what was at first probably an
accidental circumstance, has become the basis
of a new and unsightly race. If a civilized
nation, with whom taste has formed a standard
for beauty, can consent to cripple God's works,
and erect an altar to deformity, whereon to sa-
crifice the enjoyments of a helpless and useful
animal, why should we be surprized, that sava-
ges, ignorant of the beauty of proportion and

Essay on Sheep. 3 1

the harmony of forms, should have early-
sought to curb the troublesome agility of their
sheep, by giving the same preference to rickety
tails, that some among us have done to rickety
legs?

I come now to speak of those breeds of sheep
that are best known to us, and indeed the most
useful in our state of society — the sheep of
Europe. I should however first observe, that
some provinces of Persia possess a breed of
sheep whose wool is finer and more valued
than that of Spain; but as I have no where met
with a minute account of them, I shall pro-
ceed to notice the race of sheep which holds
the first rank, and bears the finest fleeces of
any known in Europe — I mean the Merino
sheep of Spain. The race varies greatly in
size and beauty in different parts of Spain. It
is commonly rather smaller than the middle
sized sheep of America. The body is com-
pact, the legs short, the head long, the fore-
head arched. The ram generally (but not in-
variably) carries very large spiral horns, has a
fine eye and a bold step. The ewes have gene-
rally no horns. The wool of these sheep is so
much finer and softer than the common wool,
as to bear no sort of comparison with it; it is
twisted and drawn together like a cork-screw;

32 Essai/ on Sheep.

its length is generally about three inches, but
when drawn out it will stretch to nearly double
that length. Though the wool is, when cleaned,
extremely white, yet on the sheep it appears of
a yellowish or dirty brown colour, owing to
the closeness of the coat, and the condensation
of the perspiration on the extremities of the
fleece. The wool commonly covers great part
of the head, and descends to the hoof of the
hind feel, particularly in young sheep; it is
also much more greasy than the wool of other
sheep. Spain contain*? besides the Merinoes, a
variety of other sheep. Those called the Cho-
aroes are much longer, larger, and higher upon
the legs than the Merinoes. Their heads are
smaller, and deprived of wool. Their con-
stitutions are stronger than those of the Me-
rino. Their wool near eight inches long, but
straighter and of less value than that of the
Merino. This race extends through all Spain,
even into those provinces in which the Me-
rino is most perfect. The other sheep are a
mixed breed between those and the Merino.
The number of these two species is computed
at about 6,000,000. Among the Merinoes there
are varieties, probably occasioned by the care
or fancy of the original cultivators of this va-
hjable stock in dift'erent parts of Spain. Castile

Essay on Sheep, 33

and Leon has the largest, with the finest coats.
Those of Soria are small, with very fine wool.
Those also of Valencia, which, like the last,
do not travel, have fine wool, but of a very
short staple. The greater part of the Merinoes
of Spain are transhumante, and migrate from
the south to the north, and from the north to
the south twice every year. This has probably
contributed to the health of the sheep, and, as
a consequence of it, to preserve the beauty of
the wool, without however being essential to it;
as appears from the fine wool produced by the
stationary flocks that I have mentioned, and
other stationary flocks in the hands of indivi-
duals, whose wool is not inferior to that of the
migrating sheep. Spain is bounded to the north
by mountains of such altitude as to be covered
during the winter with snow. These however
afford fine pasturage in the spring and summer,
when the plains in the south are parched by the
sun. It was very natural then for the shepherd
to avail himself of this circumstance, and while
the country was little cultivated, to drive his
flock from the burnt grass of the plains to the
fresh and verdant herbage of the mountains;
and again, when this was chilled by frost, or
covered by snow, to return to the plains that
had regained their verdure; the winters of

5

34 Essay 07i Sheep,

Spain not being so severe as to destroy the ve-
getation, except in the mountains.. Necessity
also contributed to keep up this practice.
During the long wars that were carried on
between the natives of Spain and the Moors,
agriculture was neglected, and the only pro-
perty which could be saved from the ravages
of an enemy, was that which could be easily
removed ; but they were content at that time
to travel only from the plains to the adjoining
mountains, and not as at present to travel the
whole kingdom twice a year. Neither conve-
nience nor necessity can be offered as an ex-
cuse for a practice so hurtful to agriculture.
This was founded in abuse of power. Happy
would it be for mankind if this was the only
instance in which tyranny and oppression had
been engrafted upon necessity.

The greater part of the travelling flocks in
process of time got into the hands of the sove-
reign, or into those of the principal courtiers
and clergy; and from thence we must proba-
bly date the oppressive code by which their
march is regulated, and the origin of the great
Council of the Royal Troop (Consejo de la
Mesta), by whom those laws are administered.
M. Tasterie, in his excellent treatise, gives the
following account of this council.

Essay on Sheep. 55

** The Mesta, which originated with the times,
in which force only gave law, about the mid-
dle of the iifteenth century, formed a political
body. TI\is association was composed of rich
and powerful persons, and some monks, all
proprietors of flocks, which, under the autho-
rity of government, made laws and decided
questions relative to pasturage and flocks of
sheep. Two great quarto volumes formed the
code of privileges, and the arsenal in which
were found arms to combat justice and oppress
the weak. It was seldom that proprietors of
land made demands when they sustained da-
mage, thinking it better to suffer than to con-
test, when they w^re assured that the expense
would greatly exceed any compensation they
might recover. It is sufficient to say, that this
tribunal is not only adverse to the enclosing of
land, but that, under some circumstances, it
may prohibit proprietors from cultivating their
inheritance. A Spanish writer (Jovellanes), in
a memoh' addressed to the King of Spain, says,
^ the corps of Junadines (the proprietors of
flocks) enjoy an enormous power, and have,
by the force of sophisms and intrigues, not
only engrossed all the pastures of the kingdom,
but have made the cultivators abandon their
most fertile lands; thus they have banished the

36 Essay on Sheep.

stationary flocks (the estantes), ruined agricul-
ture, and depopulated the country/ It is easily
conceived, that five millions of sheep travers-
ing the kingdom in almost its whole extent,
for w^hom the cultivators are compelled to
leave a road through their vineyards and best
cultivated lands of not less than ninety yards
wide, and for whom, besides, large commons
must be left; I say, it is easily conceived that
such a flock must greatly contribute to the de-
population of the country, and that the revenue
that the King draws by the duty on wool is
snatched from the bread of his people/'

When the severe weather commences upon
the moimtains, the shepherds prepare to depart,
which is generally about the end of Septem-
ber and throughout the month of October, to
seek more temperate climates and fresher pas-
tures. In April and May, according as the
season is late or early, they return to the moun-
tains. They generally travel about five or six-
leagues a day, and stop occasionally in the
pastures prepared for them : the head shep-
herd precedes, and the rest flank or follow the
flock to collect the stragglers. Like Virgil's
Libean shepherds, they carry every thing with
them.

Essay on Sheep, 37

Omnia secum
Armenta.ius Afer agit, tectumque, laremque,
Armaque, Amyclaeumque eanem, Cressamque pharetram. ,

This is comprised in a very short catalogue.
The skins of sheep that serve for their beds, a
kettle, a leather bottle, a knapsack, a spoon, a
lancet to bleed their sheep, a scissors, a hatchet,
a knife, and bread and oil or suet, on vi^hich they
subsist, and a few drugs for their sheep. These,
with the skins of those sheep that die in the
passage, are carried by a few beasts of burthen
which accompany the flock. To facilitate the
march, a number of wethers of the largest size,
which they call Mansos, are rendered very tame.
These carry bells, and are taught to obey the sig-
nals of the shepherds, and either march or stop
as they direct. The rest of the flocks follow their
leaders. As soon as they arrive at their winter
quarters, the shepherd*s first care is to form the
pens in which they are gathered at night to
protect them from the wolves, who always mi-
grate with the sheep, in order to pick up the
sick, the weak, or the stragglers. These folds
are made of genista hispanica, which is a
soft rushy shrub: mats, baskets and ropes arc
made of it. The meshes of these net enclo-
sures are a foot wide. The dogs, which are
of ' a large breed, serve to guard this fold at

38 Essay on Sheep,

night. The shepherds make their own tents
with stakes, branches, and brambles, and have
for this purpose a right to take one branch
from every forest tree. Ten thousand sheep
compose a flock under the direction of one
chief, and this is divided into ten tribes. The
head shepherd has absolute dominion over
fifty shepherds, and as many dogs, five of
each being annexed to a tribe. His salary is
about two hundred dollars a year, while that
of the first shepherd of a tribe is only ten, the
second eight, the third and fourth still less, and
a boy only two and a half. Their daily al-
lowance of food is two pounds of bread, and
as much to each dog. They may keep a few
goats or sheep, of which they have the meat,
but not the w^ool. They receive as a gratuity
about six shillings in April, and as much in
October, by way of regale. On the road they
are every day, at all seasons, exposed to the
air, and at night have no shelter but their mi-
serable huts. In this way live to a considera-
ble age the twenty-five thousand men that
compose the shepherds in Spain. The flocks
consist of rams, ewes, wethers and lambs, in
the following proportion: five rams, one hun-
dred ewes, twenty-five wethers and fifty lambs.
The small number of lambs is owing to the

Essay on Sheep. 39

shepherds killing all that are not necessary to
keep up their stock, which is, of course, li-
mitted by the right of pasturage. The num-
ber of travelling Merino sheep is about five
millions. The fleeces of the rams weigh eight
and a half pounds, of the ewes five, which
loses half in washing; but in this there is great
variety, according to the different species of
Merinoes. Tlie produce is about twenty-four
reals, or sixteen shillings per head. Of this
the owner receives but two, the King six, and
the remainder goes to the payment of expen-
ses, of pasture, tythes, shepherds, dogs, &c.
When the sheep return to their summer pasture
they have as much salt given theip as they will
eat. One thousand sheep are allowed one hun-
dred pounds of salt, which they eat in about
five months. They eat none when on their
journey, or in their winter quarters. They
suppose in Spain that salt contributes greatly
to the fineness of the wool. The shepherd
places fifty or sixty flat stones at about five
paces from each other; he strews salt upon,
and leads the sheep among them. In the
month of April it requires some vigilance to
prevent the sheep from marching oft' without
their shepherds, to the very place where they
fed the preceding year, which they sometimes

40 Essay 071 Sheep.

do to the number of three or four hundred in
a flock.

As the Merino sheep are greatly superior to
any other in Europe, it has naturally led to an
inquiry into their origin, and the time of their
introduction into Spain. On this subject history
does not afford all the light we could wish.
Many suppose that they were originally intro-
duced from the coast of Barbary, by Don
Pedro the fourth, who ascended the throne of
Castile, in the middle of the fourteenth cen-
tury. Others again attribute their introduction
to Cardinal Ximenes, who became Prime Mi-
nister of Spain in the beginning of the sixteenth
century. And Anderson insists, upon the au-
thority of Stow and some old records, that they
were introduced from England as early as Ed-
ward the fourth, who died in 1483. Though
all these circumstances may have contributed
to improve certain breeds already existing in
Spain, yet it is certain that the fine woolled
sheep were found in that country at a much
earlier period. Strabo, speaking of the beau-
tiful woollen clothes that were worn by the
Romans, says, that the wool was brought from
Truditania in Spain. After the conquest of
that country by the Romans, colonics were
planted there, who carried with them the art'^

Essay on Sheep, 41

and love of agriculture which distinguished
that nation of warriors.

Columelhi (uncle of Columella who has left
us an excellent treatise on agriculture), a rich
colonist, who lived at Cadiz during the reign
of Claudius, and made agriculture his pleasure
and his pursuit, was struck with the beautv of
the wild rams that were brought from Africa
to be exhibited at the Roman games. He
coupled those with Tarentian ewes, which were
celebrated for the softness of their wool, and
procured by this means a race whose fleeces
resembled that of their dam in softness, and
that of their sire in the colour and fineness of
the wool. Whether any permanent change
was effected by this experiment of Columella's,
I know not; but as Spain was at that tmie
highly civilized, and as agriculture was a fa-
vourite pursuit of all who were not occupied
in war, I think it highly probable that this
experiment laid the foundation for a general
improvement in the sheep of the country.
If it did, Spain is more Indebted to the patriotic
efforts of one enlightened farmer, than to the
ablest of her statesmen. How much should it
excite the laudable ambition of virtuous men to
know that there is no condition in life in which
they may not be useful, and that God has often

6

42 Essay mi Sheep.

made a simple farmer, or a plain mechanic, the
means of diffusing his blessings upon mankind.
Many centuries elapsed after this in which we
are left in the dark as to the history of agricul-
ture in Spain. The conquest of the country
by the Goths, and the subsequent reduction of
it by the Moors, together with the long wars
between the latter and the native Spaniards,
have cast a veil over their history; but as the
Moors were industrious agriculturalists, and
kept up their connection with Africa till iheir
first conquest by the Spaniards, it may be pre-
sumed that they pursued the path marked out
by Columella. It is probable, however, that
during that disastrous period which preceded
their expulsion, the farther improvement of
this useful race of sheep had been neglected ;
and as in human affairs scarce any thing is
stationary, it is also probable that they were
suffered to degenerate : for we find, as I have
said, Pedro the fourth, more than thirteen hun-
dred years after the death of Columella, reviv-
ing his experiments on an enlarged scale, and
introducing a great number of sheep from Bar-
bary. His efforts were crowned with success,
and Spain became in the fourteenth century
what she had been in the time of the Romans,
famous for the fineness of her wool. The race

Essay on Sheep, 43

was again renewed from Africa by Cardinal
Ximenes, two hundred years afterwards. From
these circumstances it is highly probable that
Spain owes her Merino race to the mixture of
her native sheep with those of Barbary, though
(as often happens) neither, in their native state,
mlay be equal to that produced from the union
of both. This may account for the sheep of
Spain being at present superior to those of Bar-
bary, though in part descended from them.

The wool of the Barbary sheep is glossy and
fine (at least such as I have seen of it), but
wants the curl of Spanish wool. I may here
mention a fact which in some Sort supports this
assertion, though an isolated fact ought not
perhaps to serve as the foundation for a theory.
I have in my flock a ewe that is descended
from a Barbary ram. Her fleece is long,
straight, and fine, and in every particular ex-
cept the last unlike the Spanish wool. I have
three lambs from her by a Merino ram; the
wool of each of these is nearly equal in fine-
ness, softness, and elasticity, to that of their
sire, and would at least be taken for that of a
seven-eight breed Merino.

I cannot think, with Mr. Anderson, that the
fine wool of Spain is derived from the stock of
England, though it may be admitted that Bri-

44 Essm^ on Sheep,

tish sheep have been imported into Spain, as it
appears by custom-house entries that English
wool was also exported to Spain, which was at
that time a manufacturing country, and sup-
plied England with cloth. For many of their
manufactories the long wool of England might
have been found useful, and it might also have
been thought desirable to propagate the breed
that bore it, without any intention of degrad-
ing the Merino breed. It is possible that the
long-woolled sheep of Spain, which are called
Choaroes, and are much larger than the Me-
rino, are the descendants of the English sheep,
mixed with the' common sheep of the country.
Had England possessed in the fifteenth century,
the fine race which is now the pride of Spain,
it is hardly possible to suppose that so shortly
after as the reign of Henry the eighth, the
breed should be so entirely lost as to induce that
prince to import, by permission of Charles the
fifth, three thousand Spanish sheep, and to dis-
perse them through his kingdom, placing them
under the care and superintendence of com*
missioners specially appointed for that purpose.
In fact, it was not till the reign of his father
that woollen cloths were manufactured in
England to any extent, and none 1 believe were
for many years after exported from thence.

Essay on Sheep, 45

Under these circumstances more attention
would naturally be paid to the carcase, and to
the quantity than to the quality ot" the wool.
In size and weight of fleece the English sheep,
generally speaking, exceed that of any other
part of Europe.

Sicily also possesses a breed of fine-woolled
sheep, which migrate like those of Spain, but
are inferior to them in the quality of the wool.
Those, with most of the sheep I have seen in
Italy, have pendent ears. From this circum-
stance I presume they have been longer domes-
ticated than those of Spain or other parts of
Europe. And as this country was originally
settled by the Grecians, it is highly probable
that the present race is from the stock of the
first colonists: for, extraordinary as it may
appear, notwithstanding the various changes
which that country has undergone, its agricul-
ture seems at the present to be what the poets
describe it to have been two thousand years
ago; and the implements of husbandry dug
up at Pompeia and Herculaneum are evidently
the models of those now in use in the vicinity
of Naples. I consider pendent ears as a proof
of very ancient domesticity, because I believe
all wild animals carry theirs erect; and most,
if not all of them, have the power of moving

4^6 Essay on Sheep.

them to the point from which the sound is
derived. When they cease to be their own
protectors, and rely upon man both for defence
and support, the organs given them with a
view to these objects, are gradually impaired,
and the debility which results from their inac-
tion changes their very form.

The sheep of France and Germany have
nothing particularly worthy of notice, if we
except the improvements made within a short
period by the introduction of Spanish sheep,
on which I shall have occasion to speak more
at large hereafter. The common sheep of the
country have in general coarse fleeces, and not
very heavy ones. Those of Rousillon and
Berry must, however, be excepted. The first
is in some degree mixed with the Merino, and
partake of their qualities; and the wool of
Berry is generally estimated at about eighteen
cents the pound, while that of the common
flocks does not exceed seven cents. In many
parts of the country their carcases are large
and heavy; but that held in the highest esti-
mation is from Brittany, which is extremely
small, but the best flavoured mutton I have ever
met with. In French Flanders they have a
large race of long-woolled sheep. They are
not very numerous, requiring richer pastures

Essay on Sheep. 47

and better treatment than sheep generally re-
ceive in France. Before I quit France it may
be proper to speak of the introduction into that
country of the Merino sheep, and of their
great improvement.

It having been fully ascertained, by a variety
of experiments, patronized by the administra-
tion, and conducted by enlightened agricultu-
ralists, that the Merino sheep might be accli-
mated in France, without any change in their
wool, application was made by Lewis the six-
teenth to the King of Spain, for permission to
export from thence a number of Merinoes.
This was not only granted, but orders were
given by the Spanish Monarch that they should
be selected from the finest flocks in Spain. In
the year 1786 four hundred rams and ewes
arrived in France, under the care of Spanish
shepherds. These are said to have been so
much superior to any that had before been in-
troduced, as not to admit of any comparison
between them, which will easily be credited
by those who know the difference between
picked sheep and a whole flock taken together,
even when the sheep are of one race. But the
Merinoes differ essentially from each other even
in Spain; those of Castile unite size and beauty
to fineness of wool; the Leonese and the Sego-

48 Essay on Sheep,

vians equal them in the latter particular, but
fall far short in the former; but the sheep of
the Escurial are the finest in Spain. The dif-
ference between the Merinoes that compose the
national flocks of France and those lately im-
ported from Spain, under the treaty of Bale
(though these also are picked sheep), is so strik-
ing, that we can hardly attribute it solely to the
care and attention which they have received in
France, though much is doubtless due to this
circumstance. Fortunately for France, the im-
provement in sheep begun under Lewis the six-
teenth was continued through a revolution, in
which almost every other useful institution was
involved in ruin. A committee of asfriculture
was formed in the Convention, and under their
protection the amelioration of the Merino flocks
happily progressed. From these flocks a num-
ber of rams and ewes are annually sold, after
the finest are picked out to keep up the original
stock. It is very conceivable that this attention
must contribute greatly to the improvement of
their stock. It is remarkable, that though in
pursuance of an article in the treaty of Bale,
five thousand Spanish sheep have been intro-
duced by the government, and a great number
by individuals, and for the term of twenty years
rams and ewes have been annually sold from

Essay en Sheep. 49

the national flocks, yet the price of rams drawn
froni those flocks is daily increasing. This
fact shows in a very striking point of view the
.advantages of this breed of sheep, since they
have been enabled to conquer the prejudices
even of the French peasantry, who adopt im-
provements very slowly. Having mentioned
the superiority in size and beauty of the national
flocks of France, it may be satisfactory to know
the quality of their wool. This I shall give
from the report of M. Gilbert, one of the mem-
bers, to the National Institute of France.

*^ The stock from which the flock of Ram-
'' bouillet was derived, was composed of indi-
" viduals beautiful beyond any that had ever
" before been brought from Spain ; but having
" been chosen from a great number of flocks, in
" different parts of the kingdom, they were dis-
" tinguished by very striking local differences,
^^ which formed a medly disagreeable to the
" eye, but immaterial as it effected their quali-
** ty: these characteristic differences have been
" melted into each other, by their successive al-
" liances, and from thence have resulted a race
*' which perhaps resembles none of those which
" composed the primitive stock, but which cer-
" tainly does not yield in any circumstance to
" the most beautiful in point of size, form, and

7

50 Essay on Sheep.

^^ strength ; or In the fineness, length, softnessv
*' strength, and abundance of the fleece. The
" manufacturers and dealers in wool, who came
" in numbers to Rambouillet this year (1796),
" to purchase, unanimously agreed to this fact,
*^ at the very time that they were combining to
*' keep down the price. The comparison I
^' have made with the most scrupulous atten-
'' tion, between this wool and the highest priced
'' of that drawn from Spain, authorizes me to
*' declare that of Rambouillet superior; unless,
" as they pretend, the best of the Spanish wool
" is not imported into France, but reserved for
'* England and Holland ; an assertion which is
" certainly very improbable, and which, if true,
" would argue a great superiority in our manu-
" factories; since the superiority of our fine
" cloths over those of any other nation has
" never been contested. All the wool of Spain
'' that I have examined, not excepting the
^* prime Leonese, the most esteemed of any,
'^ appeared to me to contain much more jar
*^ than that of Rambouillet. Every thing seems
** to evince that we shall soon totally banish
'' this hard intractable hair, so hurtful to the
" manufacture, from our fleeces. Ahiiost all
^' the fleeces of the rams of two years and up-
*^ wards, weigh from twelve to thirteen pounds;

Essay on Sheep, 5 1

^' but the mean weight, taking rams and ewes
" together, has not quite attained to eight
" pounds, after deducting the tags and the
/* wool of the belly, which are sold separately."
It is proper to observe here, that the French
pound is about one-twelfth heavier than the
English; but at the same time to note, that,
from the general custom of folding the sheep
in France, of feeding them in fallows, and
wintering them in houses, they are very dirty,
and their fleeces of course proportionably hea-
vier: the loss in washing is about 60 per cent,
so that the average weight of the ram's fleece
would be, when washed and scoured, about six
American pounds, exclusive of tags and belly
wool.

Before I quit Europe it may be proper to
lake a cursory view of the English sheep, since,
next to Spain, no country in that quarter of the
globe is so celebrated for its wool; nor is there
any that have paid so much attention to the
improvement of their stock; insomucli that
Young, in his Annals of Agriculture, asserts,
that Bakewell, in the year 1789, was in the
receipt of three thousand guineas a year for the
hire of rams, seven of which brought him two
thousand guineas. A spirit like this, attended
with proportionate wealth, could not fail, in

52 Essay on Sheep,

any country, to effect the most important im-
provements. It would be tedious and unne-
cessary to enter into a minute enumeration of
all the varieties produced by different crosses,
and other accidental causes in a kingdom which
contains such a variety of soil and climate as
Great-Britain, and in which the farmers have
endeavoured to conform the breed to their situ-
ation; and the rather, as I have already no-
ticed many of them in a paper read to and
published by the Society of Useful Arts. An-
derson divides the native British sheep into
three sorts; the Highland breed, or rather the
breed of the Western Islands, those in the High-
lands being so far adulterated as not to be found
in their original purity. These sheep, though
delicate in appearance, are small and hardy.
The wool is distinguished by a silky gloss to
the eye, and a peculiar softness to the touch.
It is not frizzled like the Spanish, but rather
longer, and gently waved. When compared
with the best Spanish wool in the London mar-
ket, it was found to be finer in the proportion
of seven to five. Stockings have been made of
it at Aberdeen that sold at five and six guineas
a pair. The wool of this breed, however, is
either naturally, or by adulteration, very much
mixed with hair or jar, so as to render the se-

Essay on Sheep, 53

pamtion very difficult. The second is the short-
woolled sheep of England and Wales, that yield
the clothing wool: of these there are very
great varieties. Few however that I have met
with yield better wool than the common sheep
of our own country,* and in general their wool
is much worse, with the exception of one or
tw^o races, whose fleeces are very short and light,
and sell at about forty-eight cents the pound.
The South Down is at present the favourite,
next to the Leicestershire or Bakewell breed.
The South Down, both for size, quantity, and
quality of wool, very much resembles the best
of our sheep in the hands of good farmers.
Their fleeces weigh from three and a half
to four pounds, and sell at thirty cents per
pound. Neither of these breeds yield wool of
sufficient fineness for broadcloths of the first,
second, and third qualities; these are all made
from Spanish wool of different degrees of fine-
ness, without admixture. Of this wool near
seven millions of pounds are annually imported
into Britain. The third distinct breed of Eng-
land, and which is peculiarly their own, is the
sheep that carry long wool fit for combing;
and in this race they excel, I believe, every

* I speak of the Northern, not being well acquainted with the Southern
States.

54f Essay on Sheep,

other part of the world. The wool of some
of this family is very coarse, and only fit for
blankets and carpets, and sells in England at
about nine cents the pound ; but then the sheep
are extremely large, and their fleeces propor-
tionably so, averaging about twelve pounds the
flock round, and some have been known to
carry above twenty pounds. Young mentions
a fleece of twenty-seven pounds. Others, and
more valuable races of long-woolled sheep,
bear a fine white silky fleece, from which the
finest worsted and camblets are made. This race
is very numerous, and their wool may be con-
sidered as the true staple of British wool. Upon
this breed Bakewell has engrafted his celebrat-
ed stock, or the new Leicestershire breed. The
principle upon which he formed his system was,
that those animals were most valuable which
carried their flesh upon the most valuable
parts, and were at the same time maintained
with the least food. Wool was not his object,
and accordingly his sheep are of the long-
wooUed breed, with wool of moderate length
and medium fineness, and sells for nine-pence
sterling. Fat upon the rump and ribs he con-
siders as more important than tallow, and ac-
cordingly he has produced sheep on which it
is there formed five or six inches thick. His

Essay on Sheep » 55

sheep are, however, on that account, less valu-
able to the epicure than to the labourer, with
whom they in some sort supply the place of
pork. He insists that they require less food
than other sheep; yet, in a comparative trial
made between them and a Merino ram by
Young, it appeared that they eat more, and
gained less weight than the Merino, in the pro-
portion of three to two. Small bones, a straight
back, and broad chine, with short legs, are the
favourite points in this new breed; and, indeed,
they contribue very much to improve the ap-
pearance of the animal, and should be sought
in whatever breed we cultivate, if they can be
reconciled with the other essential qualities
that we seek In sheep. Of the advantage of
short legs I have, however, great doubt in a
country which abounds in snow. Some judg-
ment may be formed of the nature of British
flocks by the average prices of their native
wool, which Gov. Pownal, in a letter to Arthur
Young, states as follows: Coarse seven and a
half-pence, common eight and a half-pence,
fine eleven-pence the whole fleece; at that
time they paid six shillings and six-pence ster-
ling per pound for Spanish wool, and now
pay seven shillings and three-pence.

It would almost have been unnecessary to

56 Essay on Sheep*

notice the American breeds of sheep, since
those who will interest themselves sufficiently
in the subject to read this essay, can hardly be
unacquainted with the breeds of their native
country, had it not been that three kinds of
sheep, till lately unnoticed, have attracted the
public attention; the Otter, the Arlington,
and the Smith's Island sheep. The Otter sheep,
it is said, were first discovered in some island
on our eastern coast, where I cannot precisely
say, and from thence they have spread to the
adjoining states. The sheep of this breed are
rather long-bodied than large, and will weigh,
like the other sheep of the country, about fif-
teen pounds a quarter when killed from grass*
Their wool is of a medium fineness, and a me-
dium length; it is neither properly short-cloth-
ing wool, nor is it of such length as to be ad-
vantageously combed. But what particularly
characterizes these sheep, and from which, to-
gether with the length of their bodies, they
probably took their name, is the extreme short-
ness of their legs, which are also turned out in
such a manner as to render then rickety. They
cannot run or jump, and even walk with some
difficuUy. They appear as if their legs had
been broken, and set by an awkward surgeon.
To me there is something so disgusting in the

Essay on Sheep. 57

feight of a flock of these poor lame animals, that
even a strong conviction of their superior utility
could hardly induce me to keep them. The
only advantage that can result from this defor-
mity, is, that they cannot pass over stone walls,
and are confined by slight fences. Whether
this will counterbalance the sufferings to which
they must be liable in a deep snow, the impos-
sibility of driving them to distant pastures or to
market, and the facility with which they may
be destroyed by dogs, is a matter of calculation
with economical farmers. Those, however,
who possess a grain of taste, who take a pleasure
in the sportive gambols of their lambs, and who
delight rather in perfecting than in maiming
the works of nature, will seldom be induced to
propagate, beyond what is absolutely necessary,
an infirmity which abridges the short enjoy-
ments of a useful and helpless animal.

From these sheep I turn with pleasure to the
Arlington long-woolled sheep. These Mr.
Custis, who was the original breeder of them,
informs me were derived from the stock of that
distinguished farmer, soldier, statesman, and
patriot, Washington; who had collected at
Mount- Vernon whatever he believed useful to
the agriculture of his country; and, among
ether animals, a Persian ram, which Mr. Custr^

8

5 8 Essay on Sheep.

describes as being very large and well formed,
parrying wool of great length, but of a coarse
staple. This stock, intermixed with the Bake-
well, are the source from which the fine Arling-
ton sheep are derived ; some of which, he says,=
carry wool fourteen inches in length, and are
formed upon the Bake well model. I have never
seen these sheep, but from Mr. Custis's descrip-
tion, and from the produce of the wool at the
public shearings, I have no doubt that they are
a valuable race, and such as merit the attention
of those whose farms yield a good rich bite of
grass; for upon any other I would never recom-
mend long-woolled sheep. The sample of wool
which Mr. Custis sent me from this stock pos-
sessed every ingredient which is esteemed in
combiiig wool. It was fine for the sort, soft,
silky, and beautifully white. It is admirably
calculated for hose, camblets, serges, and other
fine worsted fabricks; and it would be a pity to
see It diverted to any other objects, or to the
making of fine cloths, for which it appears to
me less adapted. It is, however, matter of
surprise, that a Persian ram should be the pa-
rent stock from which this valuable breed is
derived. The wool of Persia has always been
considered as among the finest in tlic world;
the white sells nearly upon a par with that of

Essay on Sheep, 59

Sj3ain at the London market, and the red some-
what higher. Either there must have been
some mistake as to the phice from which the
ram came, or Persia must possess two distinct
breeds of sheep: indeed, it is not Improbable
that the southern parts of Persia, upon the In-
dian Ocean, and Gulf of Ormus, may contain
the large coarse-woolled sheep that are com-
monly found in Africa. For the Smith's Island
wool we are also indebted to the researches of
Mr. Custis; from whose valuable pamphlet 1
have extracted the following account of it:

'^ I come now to speak of Smith's Island wool,
*' a discovery from which will arise the happiest
^* effects to my country, and yield the most
'^ grateful sensations to myself. This island
** (which is the property of Mr. Custis) lies in
'^ the Atlantic Ocean, immediately at the east-
*^ tern cape of Virginia, and contains between
*' three and four thousand acres. The soil,
'* though sandy, is in many parts extremely
" rich, and productive of a succulent herbage,
'' which supports the stock at all seasons. About
'' one half of the island is in wood, which is
** pierced with glades running parallel with the
*' sea, and of several miles in extent. These
" glades arc generally wet, and being completc-
^' ly sheltered by the wood on either side, pre-

^^ Essay on Sheep,

" serve their vegetation in a great measure
*^ through the winter, and thereby yield a sup-
" port to the stock. Along the sea coast arc
" also abundant scopes of pasturage, producing
*' a short grass in summer, which is peculiarly
" grateful to the palate of most animals, and
^' particularly so to sheep. The length of this
'^ island is estimated at fourteen miles, which
" gives that variety and change of pasture so
** necessary to the system of sheep farming.
" Within it are various shrubs and plants, which
'^ the animal appears to browse on with great
*^ relish, particularly the myrtle bushes, with
*' which the island abounds. The access to
" s^lt also forms a material feature in the many
'' attributes which Smith's Island possesses.

" The origin of the Smith's Island sheep can-
" not be precisely ascertained, but they are
" supposed to be the indigenal race of the coun-
" try, put thereon about twenty years since, and
'' improved by the hand of nature. When wc
^* compare Smith's Island wool with the native
^' wool of the country at large, we are lost in
*' astonishment at the wonderful interposition
" of providence in our behalf, which serves to
^' show what benefits we enjoy, and how little
*' we have estimated the gifts. The Smith's
'' Island wool is, without question, one of the

Essay on Sheep, 6\

^* finest in the world, and has excited the praise
"•^ and astonishment of all who have seen it. To
" recapitulate the various opinions given of its
" merits is unnecessary. It only remains to be
*^ judged in Europe, whither a specimen has
" been sent, to determine its value when com-
'' pared with the famous Merino, hitherto the
** unrivalled material in the woollen manufac-
** ture. The Smith's Island is a great deal
'^ longer than the Spanish, being in full growth
*' from five to nine inches in length, and in
*' some instances more. In quantity it is also
** vastly superior, as the sheep yield twice as
" much, and in some instances more. And,
" lastly, the size and figure of the animal ad-
" mits of no comparison, being highly in favour
" of the Smith's Island. The only remaining
" question Is the texture. If the Merino is
" finer in grain, the Smith's Island is so fine as
^* to answer every purpose to which the other
" can be appropriated, and so much larger in
" quantity as to yield a better profit lo the bree-
" ders. No cloth which the Merino manufac-
'' tures will be disgraced by the introduction of
"the Smith's Island; and many fabricks ma-
*' nufactured by the one at a great price, can be
*' manufactured of the Smith's Island at much
" less. The Smith's Island is as white as snow,

62 Essay on Sheep.

*' and perfectly silky and soft lo the touch, and
" of delicate grain/' Mr. Custis adds, that
these sheep are shorn twice a year. I have
written to him to know why that uncommon
mode of shearing has been pursued. He in-
forms me that he would inquire and answer my
query; but I have not yet been favoured with
the information I wish on this important sub-
ject.

Mr. Custis not having mentioned in his pam-
phlet the quantity of wool shorn at each time,
I am enabled in part to do it from one of the
letters which he has done me the favour to
write me. He says the best of these sheep have
yielded four pounds at a shearing, making an
aggregate of eight pounds per year. It appears
to me Mr. Custis is not fully informed eitlier of
the fineness or the quantity of wool produced
by the improved Merino, when he supposes
that eight pounds of unwashed wool from the
best of his sheep is more than double the pro-
duce of the Merino. I have shorn from one
of my Merino rams of the improved PYcnch
breed, eight and an half pounds of unwashed
wool, and from another seven pounds and three
quarters; though my pastures being extensive,
my sheep, kept free from fihli in the winter,
are remarkably clean when they come to be

Essay on Sheep, 63

shorn. In France, from twelve to thirteen pounds
is said to be the average fleece of the rams
form the national flock ; but then their sheep are
very dirt}-, for the reasons I have mentioned. I
should also add, that the price of my Merino
wool has risen from one dollar and twenty-five
cents, at w^hich I sold when I wrote to Mr.
Custis, to two dollars. Since the hatters and
clothiers have examined its texture, forty-four
and one-half yards of fine close-wove cloth,
forty-five inches wide, as it came from the loom,
have been made from sixteen pounds and three
quarters of it.

I have given these extracts from Mr. Custis's
valuable pamphlet, because I think it important
that the country should know its resources, and
be enabled to select a stock adapted to their soil
and to their wants. 1 cannot, however, agree
with him in sentiment (as far as I can form
mine from the sample he sent me), that the
Smith's Island wool can be introduced into any
of the manufactures in which the Merino w^ool
is used. It is soft, white, and silky, but neither
so fine or soft as the Merino wool. Mr. Custis
has, however, taken the proper method to as-
certain its value, by sending samples to Europe,
and will, I trust, furnish the public with the
result of his inquiries. I cannot omit this oc-

64f Essay on Sheep.

casion to express the high opinion which I, io
common with every other person, entertain of
Mr. Custis's patriotism, and of his animated
exertions for the improvement of this most
important branch of our rural economy.

There still remains a breed of sheep to be
noticed, which might indeed more properly
have been mentioned before — the Thibet or
Cassimere sheep. These are said to carry finer
wool than those of Spain ; but from their remote
inland situation they are little known, though
I think I have been informed that one was
brought into England either by Lord Cornwallis
or the Marquis of Wellesley. We may form
some judgment of the fineness of their wool by
the shawls that are imported from India, and
which we have whimsically called camel's
hair shawls. These fine cloths are made for
turbans, and are of two sorts; the finest, I be-
lieve, never go out of India, as we may judge
by comparing those we meet wilh to Tavcrncr'sf
account of one presented to the Grand Mogul
of sixty yards in length, which was folded in a
cocoanut shell. The best arc made from the
wool plucked from the breast of a wild animal
which is not particularly described, but which
probably, as it is a native of the mountains, is
either the Vigone or some animal of the same

Essay on Sheep, 65

species. The other, which compose the finest
exported from India, is made from the wool of
the Cassimere and little Thibet sheep, these
countries being in the vicinity of each other.

Having taken a cursory view of the different
breeds of sheep, which I conceived would af-
ford matter of amusement to my readers, and
perhaps lead to deductions useful in the im-
provement of the breed, which, however, I
shall not attempt to make at present, I will pro-
ceed to such practical observations as may be
found useful to those who have given less atten-
tion to the subject than I have done, or who
have not the means of knowing what more ex-
perienced farmers have written on the subject.

9

( ^^ )

CHAPTER II.

1 HE United States of America, particularly
those which lay to the north of the Chesapeake,
appear to me to possess advantages in the breed-
ing of sheep which are unequalled by those of
any part of Europe which 1 have seen. First,
the country is generally hilly; the hills covered
with a fine herbage ; almost every pasture is fur-
nished with running water, and sheltered more
or less by trees against the summer sun; the
enclosures are much more extensive than those
which are found in the few enclosed counties of
Europe; where, except in England and Hol-
land, scarce an enclosure is to be seen; and in
these countries they are so small as to be ill
adapted to sheep; which, on that account, very
generally run on commons. Where there are
no enclosures, the sheep must necessarily be
folded at night at all seasons of the year, a
practice extremely hurtful to them. Again,
when they are turned out, they must be led
over fallow grounds, or pick the scanty herbage
upon exhausted fields. They must be sur-

Essay on Sheep, 67

rounded by shepherds and their dogs, to pre-
vent their trespassing upon the crops, which
have no other protection : they must, of course,
be kept in such close order as never to be with-
out the atmosphere of each other's breath. What
wonder then is it that our sheep are subject to
few or none of the diseases that so frequently
diminish the flocks of Europe? It is true that
Spain may be considered as forming an excep-
tion to what I have said ; not because of any
natural advantage that she enjoys, other than in
having made a happy selection of her flocks ;
but because the whole agriculture of the
country has in some sort been sacrificed to the
maintenance of their sheep, as I have already
stated in the preceding chapter. The price of
wool also in this country is, in proportion to the
quality, higher than in any part of Europe,
while the value of land is much lower. The
interest then of the farmer with us unites with
his patriotism in calling his attention to the im-
provement of his flock. In doing this, the first
object must be to adapt his breed to his soil and
situation. If he lives in the vicinity of a great
city, whose wealthy inhabitants will be less
mindful of the value and the price than of the
rarity of an object, let him adapt his flock to
the demand that their taste, their whims, or

68 Essay 07i Sheep.

their luxury may make upon it. His early
lambs will in this case bring such a price as to
make it an object to keep a breeding flock of
that species of sheep which will produce the
earliest lambs. The most celebrated stock
which I know for this purpose is the Dorset-
shire sheep, from which are bred the house
lambs which supply the London market. The
ewes are kept in high order, and are put to the
ram in the months of May and June. The
lambs are fit for market during all the winter
months, and on that account bring an extrava-
gant price. They are kept in the house at all
times, and the ewes turned out, but brought in
to them at night and at noon. A lump of
chalk is given to the lambs to lick, which is
said to make the meat white. When a ewe
loses her lamb, or it is killed off, she is com-
pelled to admit another, and is held if she re-
fuses it. The lambs by this means having both
a mother and a foster-mother, are rendered
sooner fit for the butcher. The ewe is kept
upon the most succulent food while she gives
milk; but it is a rule among the breeders to
keep the earliest ewe lambs for stock, and it is
probably an attention to this circumstance that
has produced a kind of sheep that will lake
the ram at so early a period. By the same at-

Essai/ 071 Sheep. 69

tention perhaps, and by keeping both the rams
and the ewes very high, a similar breed might
be made among us, if the original Dorset-
shire stock could not be procured; though in
time of peace there is very little difficulty in
obtaining them from England by means of the
smugglers that trade from Dunkirk, notwith-
standing the high penalty which the govern-
ment has very ungenerously annexed to their
exportation.

If the farm on which sheep are to be reared
consists of wet or marshy ground, with rich
and luxuriant grass, I would recommend that
the large sheep, bearing combing wool, should
be preferred, since the largeness of the carcase
and the quantity of the wool might, in such
ground, more than compensate for a diminution
in the price of the wool, if the scarcity of such
wool in our country should not (as might be
expected) enhance its value: in fact, we have
hitherto made very little distinction, and we
sell alike wool that in England would bring but
twelve cents, and that which in that manufactur-
ing country would be valued at thirty-six cents.
Hence, where the pastures are adapted to large,
long-woolled sheep, they would for the present
be highly valuable, and particularly in the vi-
cinity of the sea; for I have observed, that the

70 Essay on Sheep,

English sheep which have been introduced into
this country degenerate much less on the sea
coast, than when they are conveyed beyond the
first ridge of mountains. England, Ireland,
and Flanders will supply the stock, if it should
be thought that those offered to the public by
Mr. Custis should not fall within my descrip-
tion. I should, however, both from his account
of the Arlington long-woolled breed, and from
the sample I have seen of their wool, think it
unnecessary to look further for a stock adapted
to the pastures in question. Their size will in-
crease with their pastures, and the length of
their wool with their size. For every other
description of pasture I think no doubt can be
entertained of the preference that should be
given to the Merino breed. These may be
found of such size and constitution as are adapt-
ed to any ground. Those that are dry and
barren, such as our shrub-oak plains, will
find in the small Merino, which are common
in most parts of Spain, a stock which will not
only subsist, but thrive on such grounds; and
though their fleeces are lighter, they are not
less fine than those of the larger and more im-
proved breeds. The faults in their form will,
by an attentive breeder, not fail to be gradually
corrected. From Spain may also be procured.

Essay 07i Sheep, 7 1

by those who have the means of selecting and
will not spare expense, a larger breed, with
heavier fleeces and better forms, and with
equally fine wool. I have now in France a few
that have been so chosen in Spain, for which
a double price was paid, and which are of
uncommon size and beauty: with these, and a
number more from the first flocks of France,
I hope to enrich our country when means
shall be afforded for bringing them out.

From France the best stock may more easily
be obtained,* and being already acclimated to
that country, which is more similar to our own,
and used to be fed on hay, and not to migrate,
there will be less risk in the importation and
in the adapting of them to our climate and
manner of keeping. Of these I have already
treated. I proceed to state my ideas on the
best and cheapest mode of obtaining a Merino
flock, or such a portion of Merino blood as
shall instantly double the value of a flock of
sheep. The high price of Merino rams, and
the diflSculty of procuring those of the best
sort, will deter many farmers from entering at

* Colonel Humphreys, who has probably seen both those of France and
Spain, agrees with me in this sentiment. In his letter to the Agincultural
Society of Massachusetts, he states, that the improved stock of France yield
twice as much wool as those of Spain, without any change in the quality of
the flcecp.

72 Essay on Sheep,

once upon the enterprise in the most effectual
manner; that is, by procuring full-blooded rams
in the first instance: and as this essay is not
intended for those whose wealth enables them
instantly to overcome all difficulties, I shall
treat the subject upon so economical a scale as
to be within the means of every man that keeps
a flock.

After having determined on the kind of sheep
most proper for your farm, which we will sup-
pose to be Merino, carefully examine your ewes,
and select from them those that have the short-
est or thickest coat, with the least hair on the
hinder parts, and whose bellies are well co-
vered with wool. Those whose wool is neither
long enough to comb, nor yet so short as to be
good carding wool, should be immediately sold
or exchanged for others of the description I
have mentioned. In this there will be no dif-
ficulty, because, generally speaking, they will
be the largest; and as their long wool covers
their defects, they apparently are the hand-
somest in the flock. Let your ewes be at least
three years old, as large as can be got of the
sort, belly large and well covered with wool,
chine and loin broad, breast deep, buttocks
full, the eyes lively, the bag large, and the teats
long. Next provide yourself with a ram pos-

Essay on Sheep » 73

sessing as much of the Merino blood as you can
conveniently aiford to purchase; let us suppose
him to be halt-blooded. In choosing him, be
particularly attentive to his form and size, that
you may not diminish, but rather add to the
beauty of your flock. Let him be broad in
the chine and loins, deep in the carcase, the
back straight and neither arched or swayed ; the
ribs set out so as to afford room for a large belly
well covered with wool, the forehead broad,
the eyes lively (for a heavy eye is the mark of
a diseased sheep), the testicles large, and if
covered with wool it will be an evidence of his
taking after his sire; let him be strong, close
knit, and active. To judge of his vigour, take
him by the hind legs, and observe if he strug-
gles with force, or makes but a feeble resist-
ance. Next, as the most essential point, exa-
mine his wool; if it is as fine as you can expect
in a sheep of his grade; if it is thick, close,
and greasy, full of yoke, and the breast and
loins also well covered with wool, you may rely
upon his goodness. Upon the thighs of a sheep
of this grade you must expect to find more or
less coarse wool; if, however, you have the
means of choosing, take one that has least of
it. I should prefer making my stock gradually
in this way, out of well-formed, good-sized

10

74 Essai/ on Sheep,

rams, to attaining more blood at the expense of
size and beauty; for though size maybe in itself
of minor importance; yet if you afterwards at-
tempt to increase it by larger rams, you will
find some difficulty in doing it when your stock
of ewes are small. They will lamb with more
difficulty, and afford less milk in proportion to
the size of their lambs. Beauty of form is
always to be considered ; for the best formed
sheep are generally the most thrifty. Such a
ram, with the ewes I have described, will give
you one-fourth breed lambs, who will carry at
least one-fourth more wool than your old stock;
and this wool will not be worth less than fifty-
six cents the pound, if that of the ewes sold at
thirty-seven cents. The quality and quantity
of the wool taken together will nearly double
the value of your fleeces in the first generation.
Now let us see at what expense this advantage
is purchased. The ram we will say cost twelve
dollars. The first year he will give you, if well
kept, and not exhausted by too many ewes, five
pounds of wool, worth one dollar per pound as
wool now sells; charge his keeping at one dol-
lar and fifty cents — clear profit, three dollars and
fifty cents, that is, ^^ per cent, on his original
cost; so that instead of paying any thing for a
ram which shall double the value of your flock,

Essay on Sheep, 75

you have only put twelve dollars to a more ad-
vantageous interest than any other stock would
have afforded. Any farmer then who can raise
the money, either by borrowing or parting with
some of his other stock at even something less
than its value, to procure such a ram, must stand
greatly in his own light if he hesitate about
making the purchase, because the returns are
great and certain. Suppose his original stock
yielded him thirty-six pounds, from which
must be deducted the keeping, which will ab-
sorb the whole, his new stock being one-fourth
breed, will, in the increase and fineness of the
wool, add at least thirty dollars more to it. Thus,
for twelve dollars expended, he receives in
eighteen months, when his lambs come to be
shorn, thirty-three additional dollars, and two
fleeces from his ram, worth nine dollars more,
and this all clear profit beyond the keeping of
his sheep, which the old fleeces would but just
have paid. Is there any farmer so blind to his
interest as to breed any longer the common
sheep of the country, when his flock may so
easily and so reasonably be renovated ? But he
should not stop here: the clear profit upon his
flock after the first year, and the price of his
ram, which he should then sell, will enable
him to purchase a three-fourth blood ram, say

7^ Essay on Sheep,

at twenty-five dollars. Such a ram, with his
one-fourth breed ewes, will at once give him a
half blood flock, and that without any expense,
because he purchases him with the excess be-
yond what his original stock would have given
him.

It is a general practice, and I believe in most
cases a good one, to let the lambs come in
April; but in changing a stock I should prefer
a difierent course, though it may be attended
with some more trouble and expense in taking
care of the ewes. Ihe lambs that come in
April will take the ram, but their young will
be feeble, and even if they should live, will
not form a good basis to work the change upon;
I would, therefore, put the old ewes intended
for stock in good heart, and kill off the Iambs
early, so that they may take the ram in August
and September. The lambs that fall in January
and February will be large and strong enough
to put to ram the November following, and pro-
duce good lambs, so that a year maybe gained
by changing the flock. It is true that it would
tend to the improvement of the flock not to let
the ewes breed till they are two years old; but
few farmers have the means to keep them away
from the ram, and they will generally take
him in November and December; in which

Essay on Sheep. 77

case it is better that the ewes should have ac-
quired two or three months more growth. With
a very large stock this might be troublesome
and hazardous; but a farmer that keeps about
thirty ewes might do it w^ith little loss or incon-
venience, by raising a few cabbages, turnips,
and potatoes extra, to gives his ewes at yeaning
time. I presume that every farmer knows that
a ewe goes fiv^e months with lamb, and of course
ho\V to regulate the yeaning by the keeping
off or admission of the ram. The number of
ewes that a ram will cover has never, that I
know of, been precisely ascertained. The
Spanish shepherds have one to twenty-four ewes,
and this seems to have been the rule in the days
of the patriarchs, as we may infer from some
passages in which their flocks are enumerated.
In France they seem to think forty the most
common. In England a ram highly kept has
gone to eighty ewes, but then precautions were
used to keep him from exhausting himself, by
giving him only one at a time. Without the^c
precautions, however, 1 have generally found
one ram sufficient for sixty or seventy ewes; and
have even known one to serve a hundred, but
I think he was injured by it. If 1 had my
election, I should not choose to put more than
forty ewes to a ram. If the rams arc let to run

78 Essay on Sheep,

the whole season with the flock, one will serve
more ewes than if kept apart till late in the
autumn.
I should suppose that every good farmer
would provide some sheher for his ewes in the
winter; if he does not, he ought by no means
to let his lambs drop early, or he will meet with
great losses. — It will be proper here to mention
the manner in which I think the flock should
be treated in the winter, which the attentive
farmer will either adopt or improve upon, as
circumstances may demand. It is common to
let the sheep run about the barn door, and pick
up what the cattle drop. This may be econo-
mical, but is not a practice calculated to make
a fine flock. The sheep will frequently be
hurt by the cattle, and the timid ewes will be
driven from their food. It might not be amiss
to have a few wethers kept for that purpose,
who would probably winter well with little ex-
pense by running with the cattle. The stock
wethers, if the flock is large, should be kept
by themselves. If they run in an open field,
in which there are hills, trees, fences, or houses,
and are foddered from the hay-stack, they need
no other shelter; though I should prefer a rick
out of which they were fed, and on the wind-
ward side of which tlicy could lay. If they

Essay on Sheep, 79

run with the ewes, as they are stronger, they
will feed up )n the most delicate hay, and com-
pel the ewes to eat the refuse. They will also
render it difficult to give the ewes separately
that succulent food which they require before
and afier they have lambed, unless you are
provided with such a quantity as will serve for
the whole flock, both ewes and wethers. The
following is the plan I pursue for a stock of
two hundred ewes and seventy wethers.

I have chosen two warm dry situations, shel-
tered from the north-west wind by hills, and
open to the morning sun in winter at its first
rising. On the north side of this I have
erected two barracks of about twenty-four feet
square, with an elevation of about six and an
half feet from the ground to the hay-loft.
These, standing at a distance from each other,
I have united by a shed having the same eleva-
tion, and being about ten feet deep, with a hay-
loft above. This shed is open to the south, and
boarded to the north; the barracks are boarded
up, the one on the north and west, and the
other on the north and east; the sheds cover
the east side of one and the west side of the
other, uniting them together. Along the whole
of this building racks are erected, with a trough
at the bottom to catch the hay-seed, of which

SQ Essai/ on Sheep,

the sheep are very fond. This trough also
serves for turnips, bran, salt, ^c. and as the
extent is accommodated to the number of sheep,
they are equally fed, the strong having no ad-
vantage over the weak. On the outside of this
building all around, are boards hung upon
hinges, which serve to put the hay in which is
thrown from the barracks to the outside of the
sheep-fold. By this means the wool is kept
free from hay-seeds, which injure it very much.
Along the racks, for the distance of seven feet,
the building is floored, so that the sheep are
kept clean and lie dry. The yard is about
three-fourths of an acre, and is surrounded by
a high pale fence, that dogs may iind no ad-
mittance. In warm days, when the sheep are
out, the loop boards along the rick are turned
up, so as to let the wind pass freely under the
studs, and render the air fresh and pure. With
these buildino^s I am very little solicitous about
keeping away the rams till late in the autumn.
My lambs generally come in Marcli, and some-
times earlier, and by having an attentive shep-
herd, I have seldom lost many, even when, as
the year before last, by the severity of the wea-
ther late in March, my neighbours lost many
of theirs.

The follpwing is the practice I would re-

Essay on Sheep. 81

commend, founded on my own experience,
if the lambs come early; and I cannot help
thinking that those that do, winter better the
' ensuing year, and make the finest sheep, at
least if the ewes are suffered to breed the first
season. In France, however, they are ever at-
tentive to keep the Merino ewes from taking
the ram till two and an half years old; and to
this circumstance among others, they attribute
the great improvement of the stock. Indeed,
a full breed Merino will not take the ram till
she is eighteen months old, at least this has
always been the case with mine. After having
provided shelter to which your ewes may retire
in bad weather, care must be taken to furnish
the yard with a great quantity of litter, and to
renew this after every rain. This furnishes a
quantity of manure that richly repays the ex-
pense of the Utter; it keeps the wool clean, and
contributes greatly to the health of the flock;
if your lambs are to come early, it is still more
necessary, since without it m.any will be lost by
dropping during a wet or cold night upon the
damp ground, to which they sometimes freeze;
and the filth which they by this means contract,
will often keep the ewe from licking them
dry. I generally heap up leaves (which I col-
lect in the autumn) about a foot deep, and oc-

11

82 Essay on Sheep.

casionally lay straw upon them. This forms
a soft bed in the winter^ and by its early fer-
mentation in the spring, furnishes a rich ma-
nure. In stormy weather your shepherd should
visit your fold very frequently about yeaning
time, as a storm appears to accelerate the birth
of the lambs, and some may be lost for want of
attention.

In addition to the general fold, I have four
partitions under thp shed, large enough each
to contain a couple of ewes. When a lamb
drops, it is put, with its mother, into one of these
enclosures, which is well littered. Here they
are kept for two days, and tlie ewe is fed with
bran and succulent food. When more lamb&
come, and these cells are wanted, the older
give place to the younger, the lamb being
generally sufficiently strong the third day to
take care of itself, and to find its dam when
turned into the flock. In the early part of the
season, and before the ewes begin to show any
signs of being near their yeaning time (which
may be known by the swelling of their udders),
they are kept upon good hay (clover is prefer-
red to any other) and corn-stalks. When any
of them appear to make bag, as the shepherds
call it, which will be about ten days or a fort-
night before they lamb, they are carried to the

Essay on Sheep, 83

second of the sheep-folds that I have mentioned,
and are there fed with the best of hay, corn-
stalks, turneps, cabbage, or potatoes, and once
or twice in a day have a handful of wet
bran. This gives them a flush of milk when
the lambs drop; for want of which many lambs
are lost by inattentive farmers. In this fold the
lambs and ewes are kept separate from the rest
of the flock, till they amount to about half the
number; when those in the first fold will be so
far advanced as to require the same treatment,
and are so diminished in number as to make
any removal unnecessary, the whole stock bcr
ing then well fed with the most succulent food
that can be procured for them. Whenever the
snow is off the ground they should be turned
to pasture, with the exception of those whose
Iambs are too young to follow them; and even
when the snow lays, if not too deep, they
should be led out to water; and if you have
any cedar, pine, hemlock, or other bushes
that rise above the snow, it will be well to
beat a path to them, and leave your flocks an
hour or two among them. The branches of
these trees too should be brought into the fold
when the ground is long covered with snow;
for the fecdincy on them will contribute much
to the health of your flock. Where these can-

84 Essay on Sheep.

not be obtained, smear tar on boards, and sprin-
kle them lightly with salt, and lay them so as the
sheep may get at them; by eating it their bodies
will be kept open, and themselves in heart.
Once a week a small quantity of salt should
be given in the mangers. Salt is, I think, es-
sential to the health of sheep in our climate,
and it is thought of so much consequence in
Spain, that the King cannot raise much revenue
on that article, lest it should induce the shep-
herds to abridge the quantity usually given to
their sheep; which, they say, would not only
injure them, but change the quality of the
wool. About a fortnight after the lambs drop,
give them, besides your mark of appropriation,
a mark which is to distinguish the degree of
Merino blood they possess, At this time you
can make no mistake, because you can take
the lamb immediately from its dam : if you
defer it till they are larger and more numerous,
you will be liable to errors. I view this as very
important, particularly if you mean to sell any
of your stock for breeding, since a man that
possesses either honour or honesty would feel
the utmost pain at having deceived the pur-
chaser in a matter which is so essential to the
amelioration of his flock.

Should any deformed or lame lambs be found

Essay on Sheep. 85

ill your flock, or should any one be killed by;,
accident, strip off the skin from such lamb, and
cover with it either a twin lamb or the lamb of
,a young ewe who does not appear to be a good
nurse, and shutting up the ewe that has lost
her lamb, she will generally take it as her own.
Should she refuse, she must be held for a day
or two, when she will adopt it. This is a com-
mon practice in Spain, where even half the
lambs are killed, and two ewes given to each
lamb. The fatigue they undergo in travelling
I presume has rendered this necessary. One
of my neighbours tried it last spring, upon my
recommendation, with success. If the lambs
come early, the ewes will be relieved, and the
Iambs strengthened by giving them fine hay
and bran, or any succulent food, such as cab-
bage, &c. In order to do this, and not suffer
their food to be eaten by the old sheep, I have
contrived boxes with a rack and manger within
them, and lids to put in their fodder. The
front of this box is of lath, so wide as to permit
the lambs to go in and out at pleasure, but too
narrow to admit the grown sheep. If it is
preferred to have the lambs come in April, in
that case no particular care is necessary, other
than that of providing a field of rye or clover
for the ewes.

86 Essay on Sheep.

., Having brought our flocks through the win-
ter, we now come to the most critical season^
that is, tlie latter end of March and the month
of April. At this time, the ground being bare,
the sheep will refuse to eat their hay, while the
scanty pickuig of grass, and its purgative qua-
lity will disable them from taking the nourish-
ment that is necessary to keep them up. If
they fall away, their wool will be injured, the
growth of their lambs will be stopped, and even
many of the old sheep will be carried off by a
dysentery. To provide food for this season is
very difficult; turneps and cabbage will rot, and
bran they will not eat after having been fed
upon it all winter; potatoes, however, and the
Swedish turnep called the roota baga, may be
usefully applied at this time, and so I think
might parsneps and carrots. But as few of us
are in the habit of cultivating these plants to
the extent which is necessary for the support
of a large flock, we must seek resources
more within our reach. The first and simplest
of these is to leave the second growth of our
clover uncut, and to turn the ewes upon it.
The young clover will shoot very early in the
spring, having been covered by the old crop
during the vvinter. This, together with the old
grass, which the sheep will be compelled to eat

Essay on Sheep, 87

in order to get at the young sprouts, will keep
them up till the pastures are fit for them. A still
better practice is to put in a very early crop of
rye, giving the ground a double quantity of
seed; and perhaps too if the seeds of turneps,
kale, and winter cabbage were sown with it, they
might, if the winter was favourable, add to the
quantity of food. The ewes and lambs turned
upon this would thrive exceedingly, and if your
pastures consisted of rye grass, orchard grass,
clover, parsley, and burnet, which come for-
ward early in the season, they might be taken
from the rye before they had done it the least
injury; their feet and tails more than compen-
sating the mischief done by their teeth. The
summer feeding of sheep must of course be re-
gulated by the nature of the owner's ground;
if, however, it is in his power to make a selec-
tion, let him choose grounds with a sweet
herbage of white clover, spear-grass, or blue-
grass; let the pasture possess both water and
shade; and as sheep prefer short grass, and have
no objection to feeding after horses, though
they dislike what other sheep have lain or
breathed upon, it will be economy to put
horses on the same pasture; horned cattle are
not good, because ruminating animals dislike
the food that is tainted with the breath or tread

88 Essay on Sheep.

of other animals that ruminate. It will be pro-
per too occasionally to change the pastures. I
find that the daisy is eaten readily by sheep in
the pasture in the spring of the year, and when
in flower they will crop the flowers; but then
they must have a change of food, or they will
tire of it, and only eat it from necessity. If
not used to it, it will sometimes purge them in
the spring; in which case their pastures should
be changed. No hay is, however, eaten with
more avidity, both by sheep and cattle than that
made from the daisy when in the flower. If
it stands thick, and you cut it down, after wilt-
ing a few hours the cows will leave their grass
to feed upon it.

It is a generally received opinion in every
part of Europe except England, that sheep
should not feed either in the evening or in the
morning when the dew is on the grass. No-
thing can be more absurd than this idea, or
more contrary to experience. With me it is
one among a thousand other proofs, that fraud
may practise upon ignorance till falsehoods
are considered as the axioms of truth. In every
country in Europe except England and Holland,
sheep are tended by shepherds, who lead them
to the field, and continue out with them the
whole day, whatever may be the state of the

Essay on Sheep. 8-9

weather. It was very natural for men who had
no interest in the prosperity of their flocks to
endeavour to abridge this wearisome and lonely
task, to share early in the evening the pleasures
of society, and enjoy their fire-sides, and to quit
their homes as late as possible in the morning.
This well-invented tale answered their purpose,
and, perhaps, in the begisuiing derived force
from the accidental or fraudulent death of some
part of their flocks. The shepherds were too
much interested in supporting this idea, and
their masters too ignorant, or too confident in
their integrity to refute it; and from hence this
system of keeping up the flock till the dew
dries off' the ground is so general as never once
to be doubted in every country where flocks
are tended by shepherds, and ridiculed in those
in which they feed without a guard. In Eng-
land sheep are out night and day. In America
the sheep are found to feed with most avidity
when the dew is upon the grass. If the pasture
is plentiful, they fill themselves and lay down
by nine o'clock, and rise again to feed an hour
after; but as soon as the sun has perfecdy dried
the grass, and began to beat upon their heads
with violence, they seek the shelter of some
friendly shade, and will even suffer hunger
rather than take their food while they may be

12

90 Essay on Sheep,

incommoded by the heat. If the pasture af-
fords a wood or a hill, under the shade of which
they can feed, they will be found on their legs
again by three or four o'clock in the afternoon ;
but if not, they begin to feed later in the day,
and will continue so to do some hours after
sunset. It will easily be conceived then, that
sheep must suffer extremely by being folded
when they should feed, and being compelled
to feed when they should be at rest.

I ought to have mentioned, that it is a prac-
tice in some places to shear the tags and w^ool
from the udders of the ewes before they lamb-
ed; and this practice is strongly recommended
by a number of agricultural writers, who allege
that the lamb cannot suck so well unless this is
done: but there are many plausible theories
which are not confirmed by practice, and
this I take to be among tlie number. The
teat is always bare, and this is the only part
that the lamb has any thing to do with, and
bareing other parts only tend to mislead his
search. But this is not the greatest evil that
results from it. The ewe must be handled,
and too often very roughly, when she is heavy
with lamb. The effect of this is very obvious;
the teat is sometimes wounded by the shears;
but, above all, the shearing exposes the udder

Essay on Sheep » 91

to cold, which, if the ewe is very forward,
throws back her milk, and sometimes kills
her; and even when less forward, it endangers
her health, and of course that of her embryo
lamb. I have seen an account, though I can-
not just now recollect where, of a number of
ewes dying in England in consequence of cold
w^eather following soon after this unnecessary
operation .

SHEARING.

This too is a delicate task, and requires more
attention than is frequently paid to it. Many
farmers begin by washing their sheep. This
may be a good practice where the fleeces of
the sheep are thin and shaggy, as in the long-
wooUed breed; yet I think with thick, short
clothing wool it is of little use, and particularly
if the flock consists of Spanish sheep, whose
wool is so close and thick as to render it abso-
lutely impossible to make it clean by washing on
the sheep's back; and for this reason it is never
practised in Spain. The long, straight wool soon
dries, and therefore the sheep are less injured
by it. But when the water is made to penetrate
to the skin, through a thick close fleece, it will
remain wet a long time, and I think cannot

92 Essay on Sheep.

fail to injure the sheep, which are very subject
to colds in the head, chills that penetrate the
limbs, and, falling on the bowels, brnig on a
lax, which sometimes kills, and never fails to
weaken them extremely. Another evil which
is little attended to, is the bringing together a
large flock of sheep in a stable or close barn,
and keeping them together till the whole
are shorn. If there are any disordered sheep
in the flock, they communicate their com-
plaint, if contagious, to the whole flock,
who take in each other's efiiuvia at every
breath they draw. But independent of this,
their being heated in this manner, and inime-
diately after stripped of their clothing, cannot
but be very hurtful to them. In Spain it is a
common practice to keep the sheep closely
confined, in order to make theni sweat, with a
view to increase the weight of the wool, and
to make the shears enter easier. The conse-
quence is, that many die; and in some instances
one haif of the flock has been carried oft^ in the
space of a night. I cannot but believe that this
injudicious management and folding have ge-
nerated tliat great catalogue of maladies that
prevail among the sheep of Europe, but most
of which arc happily unknown in America.
1 vv^ould, therefore, recommend, when the

Essay on Sheep. 93

shearing commences, that the sheep be penned
in the open air, and brought by six or eight
at a time into the barn. If the flock is large,
drive up only one portion of them, and let the
rest feed abroad till wanted. The time of shear-
ing must be regulated by the state of the wea-
ther and the growth of the wool. If the sheep
begin to loose their wool, and this does not arise
from bad keeping, it will be found, on examin-
ation, that it is protruded by a growth of young
wool ; there would then be some loss by defer-
ring the shearing, as the new wool will injure
the old, and the next years crop be diminished
in quantity by the delay. But even this should
not induce the farmer to shear his sheep till the
weather is \yarm and settled. In this circum-
stance the Merino breed have an advantage
over all others. They never shed their wool;
and from some experiments that have been
made in France*, it appears that two and even
three years growth may be had at one cutting
without diminishing the quantity. Thus, if
a sheep would have given three pounds the
first year, if left unshorn, he will give six the
next, and nine the following; so that if it was
desirable to have Merino wool of ten or twelve
inches long, it could be obtained : but it is a
practice that I would not recommend in our

94? Essay o?i Sheep,

warm climate, where sheep must suffer greatly
under so thick a fleece, as well from the heat
as from the lice that it would generate. It is,
however, a great advantage not to be compelled,
from the falling of the wool, to shear at an
inconvenient or improper time; and this ad-
vantage is, I believe, confined solely to the
Merino breed. How far it may extend to the
mixed breed I do not know.

In some countries the sheep are shorn twice
a year; but wherever this practice prevails, I
believe it is owing either to the wool's being
too coarse for use when it attains its full growth,
or because, as the winter approaches, and no
proper provision is made to keep them, the
sheep falling in flesh, would not keep their
wool till shearing time.

It is a general practice in shearing to tie the
legs of the sheep together. This is very im-
proper: it forces the sheep into a position in
which the intestines being pressed, they dis-
charge their urine and dung at the time they
are sheared, which fouls the wool, and is of-
fensive to the operator; besides which, the skin
being by this means drawn together, there is
much more danger of cutting the sheep than
if they were placed in their natural position.
It has, therefore, been recommended to tic

Essay on Sheep, 95

ihetn to a table, after laying them on one side;
but this I think would subject them to some
risk if they should struggle, and at all events
will require twice tying, as the sheep must be
'turned. I contemplate trying the next year
the tying the fore and hind legs to a bar wtih
two cross pieces; the bar to be about eighteen
inches long, and the cross pieces six. This
would leave the sheep in their natural posture,
with their legs a little stretched out; a rod of
iron, with a curvature at each end, would per-
haps be still better, because, being smaller, it
would be less in the way of the shears. The
shearing of a common long-woolled sheep is a
matter of little difficulty, the fleece being light,
and the wool not so valuable as to occasion any
great attention to shearing close. To those that.
have short-wooUed, and particularly Merino
sheep, I would recommend not to trust the
shears to careless hands, or by any means to
hurry their workmen ; on the contrary, to re-
mind them constantly that the wool is suflicl-
ently valuable to compensate for the time spent
in taking it off, and the sheep too valuable to
be maimed. To shear one Merino sheep pro-
perly will take more time than to shear three
long-woolled sheep. Let the master then show
no impatience if he would have his work well

do Essay oji Sheep,

done. Great care should be taken not to wound
the sheep, particularly when the shears is ap-
plied near the udder, where wounds are dan-
gerous; but as some accidents will unavoidably
happen, the best remedy to apply to the wound,
hi order to heal and protect it from the flies,
is a little tar from the tar-bucket, which con-
tains some mixture of grease, and a little fine
dust of charcoal over it.

If the wool is to be used in the family, it is
best to sort it as the fleeces are taken oif, putting
the wool of the hoggets (or young sheep) by
itself, because it injures cloth to mix this with
that of full-grown sheep, as it is not of the same
texture or strength, and will make the cloth
shrink unequally. The other fleeces may be
sorted also, making separate parcels of the
thighs — the belly — the back and sides. An-
other assortment may be made afterwards if
thought necessary. If the wool is designed for
sale, the fleeces should be carefully rolled up,
first taking off the tags, and tied together with a
lock of the wool. If the flock consists of Meri-
noes, pure or mixed, and common sheep, as
many parcels should be made as there are grades
in the flock, so that each part, when carried to
market, maybe marked according to the value.
The wool should not be kept long upon hand

Essay on Sheep, ^1

without washing, as it is liable in that case to
ferment and spoil in hot weather. When the
sheep are shorn, if the weather should prove
wet and cold, and you have sheds or barns of
sufficient size to contain them without crowd-
ing, it will be well to house them at night, and
to give them salt, which is a stimulant, and
will enable them better to bear the sudden
chills occasioned by the loss of their fleeces.
To this might be advantageously added a little
corn or oats.

Before the sheep are dismissed from the
shepherd's hands, they should be carefully ex-
amined as to their age, their constitution, and
the quality of their wool; the old sheep, those
that are weak, ill formed, or ewes that appear
to have been bad nurses, or to have lost their
lambs from the want of milk, or whose wool is
bad, either by being mixed with jar (short
hairs), or which are rough on the thighs, should
be marked, in order to turn them off, and put
in good pastures by themselves, to fat them the
sooner. The age of a sheep is distinguished
by their front teeth; they have eight in their
under, but none in their upper jaw. These
are complete at their birth, but they are
small and pointed. The second year the two
middle teeth are changed for two of consider-

13

98 Essai/ on Sheep,

ably more breadth, by which they are distin-
guished from the six lamb's teeth : the third
year the two adjoining teeth are changed : the
fourth year leaves them with only two lamb's
teeth : the fifth year all their teeth are changed,
and they are then said to be full mouthed. At
seven and eight years they begin to loose their
front feeth. Whenever this happens, they are
called broken mouthed, and should be turned
off to fat, as they are then upon the decline.
Many sheep will, however, preserve their teeth
much longer; but it will be best, except in the
case of a valuable ewe or ram, to turn them off
the year after they are full mouthed; for they
decline in wool as they grow older, and will
fatten better before the teeth get loose or decay:
besides that, in a flock of common sheep the
principal profit consists in fatting off early, as
the sheep sold is of three times the value of the
Iamb by which it may be replaced.

The shearers should also examine very atten-
tively whether the sheep they shear have the
scab, which may be known by the wool com-
ing oft* easily, and by the skin being rough and
discoloured. In that case the remedies which
I shall hereafter mention should be immediately
applied; and if the disorder has gone so far as
to have formed a sore or scab, it will be best

Essay on Sheep, 9#

lo separate the infected sheep from the flock
till the cure is efiected. Cold and heat is inju-
rious lo sheep that have been just shorn; they
^ should, therefore, be put into pastures in which
they can lind shade, for the sun not only hurts
them when naked, but dries the skin, injures
the growing wool, and is said to produce the
scab. At this time too attention should be paid
to the horns of the sheep, to see that they do
not press upon the skull, or endanger the eyes;
in either of which cases, if not taken off, they
will cause the death of the animal. There are
two ways to remove the horns : the Spanish
shepherds make a hole in the earth large
enough to contain half the body of the sheep,
and another of less depth for his head, under
which a block is placed ; the animal is laid
upon his back in the pit, a man sitting astride
to keep him down, while another confines his
head to the block, and a third cuts off his horns
with a sharp chissel and mallet; I have, how-
ever, preferred using a fine stiff-backed saw,
with which the operation can be very neatly
performed, though a surgeon's saw would be
better. After the horns are taken off, I have
applied tar to the extremities of the stumps,
and tied over them two or three folds of strong
linen to keep off the flies. Last year I was

100 Essay on Sheep.

compelled to have this operation performed in
the heat of summer, and to take oft' the horn,
which was very large, within two inches of the
skull; and though it bled freely, the ram did
very well, and seemed not to feel any inconve-
nience from the operation after the bandage
was applied. It would be desirable to obtain
sheep without horns, not only to avoid the trou-
ble of cutting them, but because they are dan-
gerous to the ewes in the fold, inconvenient to
the sheep if they feed from racks, and frequent-
ly fatal to each other; for in the rutting season
they will fight with such fury as to occasion
the deatli of one of the combatants. Few of
the Spanish Merinoes are found hornless; when
such are found, if they are equally perfect in
other respects, they should be preferred. I
have one of this description, of fine size and
figure; but the materials that should have form-
ed his horns appear to have been transferred to
his hoofs, which grow out to the length of six
or eight inches, and must be cut at least twice
in a season, or they render him lame; the cut-
ting, however, is attended with little difficulty,
and no danger.

Most people observe the season of shearing
for docking, castrating, and marking their
lambs. 1 believe the docking contributes to

Essay on Sheep, 101

cleanliness, and therefore have adopted it. In
England, however, it is seldom practised, but
very commonly in Spain. The castration is
performed in various ways; some prefer cut-
ting out the testicles, while others tie the scro-
tum so as to stop the circulation, and after four
or five days, when the parts are dead, they cut
it oiF just below the string, and tar the wound.
This is said to be the best mode, where the cas-^
tration is to be performed on an aged sheep.
But great attention should be given to the wea-
ther: I lost six out of seven last year by having
It performed in warm weather on sheep of only
three months old. When the lambs are young,
cutting is the easiest and best mode; and if the
season is advanced when they drop, they may
be safely cut at ten days old; indeed, the ear-
lier it is done the finer will be the wool and the
flesh; but if rain or cold weather succeeds be-
fore they are cured, they should be housed, as
I have known them to die for the want of this
precaution. In Spain it is usual, instead of ei-
ther of these operations, to twist the testicles
within the scrotum, so as to knot the cord; in
which case they decay gradually, without in-
juring the sheep.

When it is desirous to confine the breeders in
a flock to a less number than that of the ewes

102 Essay o?i Sheep.

produced, the ewe lambs may be splayed; in
Avliich case they give more wool, fatten better,
and are said to afford finer meat. This operation
cannot be performed conveniently before the
lambs are six weeks old, because the ovaria is
at an earlier period too small to be easily distin-
guished. They are said to suffer so little by
this operation, as not to feel any inconvenience
from it after the first day.

The time for weaning the lambs depends
upon various circumstances. If the parent ewe
js broken mouthed, or so faulty in wool or in
shape as to render it desirable to get rid of her,
the lamb must be weaned early, so as to admit
of her being fatted in season; if she is admitted
to the ram as soon as she is disposed to take
him, the earlier she ivill fat. If the object is
to render the lambs as large as possible, and
they are of such a stock as to make the ewes
of comparatively less value, it will be best
to let the lambs run with them till they wean
themselves, because they undoubtedly grow
the more rapidly for it. This mode I would
therefore recommend when a Merino fiock
is to be engrafted upon a common one. But
if the ewes arc valuable, it certainly will be
best to wean the lambs so early as to give the
ewes some respite before they take the ram

Essay on Sheep. 103

again; and indeed, if eiirly lambs are preferred,
early weaning is absolutely necessary, as the
ewe will seldom take the ram while exhausted
^by nursing. In Spain they leave the lambs
with the ewes till they wean themselves. In
France, and generally in England, they are
weaned at three or four months old. In order
to prevent the lambs from falling off when they
are weaned, they should be put into a piece of
young tender grass, wiih an old quiet ewe or
wether to direct their movements; they should
also be out of sight and hearing of their mo-
thers, that they may the sooner forget each
other. If the keeping them apart should be
inconvenient, they may be brought together at
the end of a fortnight. Some attention should
be paid to the ewes for the first week, in order
to prevent their suffering by a too great flow of
milk, which should be taken from them every
day or two; and perhaps it would be best, till
their milk was dried up, to keep them in scant}'
pastures.

It was the opinion of the Romans that the
first lamb from a ewe was generally weak and
pot-bellied ; they separated such from their
flocks, and fatted them off. I believe the opi-
nion well founded, but I think it arises from
the yoimg ewes seldom having so much milk,

104 Essay on Sheep.

or being so careful of their lambs as the older
ones. If the lambs come early, it will be ne-
cessary to wean the forward males before the
first of August, particularly if the ewes are in
high order, or if some among them have lost
their lambs early, as they may otherwise im-
pregnate the ewes sooner than is proper. It is
a very common practice in Europe to shear the
lambs, though it is seldom done here; and yet
I think it more adapted to our climate than to
that of northern Europe. The heat of our sum-
mers renders the wool very burdensome to the
lambs; and as our autumns are generally fine
and dry, there is sufficient time for the wool to
grow so much as to protect them during the
winter. Lamb^s wool also sells much higher
here for hatters' use than in Europe, so as to
render the shearing more a point of profit. Af-
ter the lamb is shorn, he should be washed and
perfectly freed from the tick. Thougli I do
not wash my sheep before shearing, I always
have them washed, after they arc shorn, once
or twice during the hottest weather, and think
that the practice is useful in freeing them from
tick and preventing the scab. My lambs will
drop very early this year; I contemplate shear-
ing all those not intended for sale, and washing
them not only in running water, but with soap.

Essay on Sheep. 105

I propose to make soap, for the purpose, of tur-
pentine instead of grease, and to mix a weak
deeoetion of tobacco with the water in which
they are washed. This I think will not only
free them in the first instance from tick and
lice, but keep the tick fly from assaulting them
as long as the seem of the tobacco or the tur-
pentine remains. Tar, as a cheaper material,
may be used instead of turpentine; neither of
them will injure the w^ool when mixed with a
just proportion of alkaH, and diluted when used.
The next care of the attentive shepherd is to
examine his flock frequently, in order to know
whether they are in health, and to remove such
as he may find distempered ; tor almost all the
diseases of sheep are contagious, and a whole
flock may be lost by the negligence of a few
days. Hapi^ily, that long catalogue of disorders
which prevail in other parts of the world, is re-
duced in our country to two — the scab, and the
staggers, or dizziness* The scab is a cutaneous
disorder; it is discoverable from the sheep's fre-
quently rubbing himself, biting and pulling his
wool; and, when it has made some progress,
from the wool's rising or falling otf, at first
generally on the back. Fine-woolled sheep,
though not more subject to this complaint than
others, are, it is said, more difficult to cure, both

14

10^ Essay on Sheep,

because of the closeness of their coats and the
delicate texture of their skins; I have, however,
found very little trouble with it, though it has
appeared several times among individuals of my
flock. The care that I take to have the flock
drawn up and examined at least once a month,
has prevented its spreading when it appeared,
as the infected sheep were immediately sepa-
rated, and means used for the cure, which
has never in one instance failed to be effectual
after having been three or four times applied.
For a particular account of my remedy, and
several others that are applied to this disorder,
I shall refer to the Appendix, in which I shall
enumerate the diseases of sheep, with the most
approved remedies.

The staggers, or dizziness, which is also
known by various other names, has occurred
in three instances in my flock, and always at-
tacked lambs under one year old ; and, indeed,
I believe it is confined solely to lambs. They
were taken very suddenly, and without any
previous symptoms, by a sj^ecies of convulsion,
in which the neck was twisted to one side; they
lost the use of their legs; when raised they
would attempt to follow the flock, but turned
round and fell; in a few days they were inca-
pable even of standing, of moving their heads or

Essay on Sheep. 107

any of their limbs. As they were very valuable
sheep, I paid particular attention to them; grass
and grain were given them, which they would
readily eat, though they could not move any
part but their jaws. In this state they lay a
week without motion, except of their eyes and
mouth when food was given them; they then
so far recovered as to be able to stand when they
were supported, in which posture their food
was given them, but would fall down when the
support was withdrawn. In about ten days they
*could stand without support, but fell when they
attempted to walk ; their motion being rather a
convulsive run than a walk. At intervals they
would get better, and be able to walk for some
time, but they were always found laying in
some part of the field as if they were dead. Ob-
serving that the vivacity of their eyes was not
altered, I directed that the attention in feeding
and supporting them should not be remitted,
and in the course of about six weeks they so far
recovered as to join the flock; one of them,
however, a young ram, received a blow in
his w^eak state from a stronger one, that kil-
led him; tlie other two recovered, but very
slowly; and even at the end of eight months
they bore evident marks of their complaint. This
disorder is found, upon dissection, to be owing

108 Essay on Sheep.

to a bag containing water within the skull,
which presses upon the brain. It is generally
considered as incurable, though it is said by
others that it may sometinies be remedied by
trepanning: a soft place on the head indicates
the situation of the bag, which, if taken out
whole, will remove the disorder; others pass a
sharp wire up the nostril into the brain, and
perforate the bag: the suppuration that this oc-
casions effects the cure ; five out of six, however,
die under this operation, and it may, therefore,
be justly considered as incurable by the doctor,
but not, as I have shown, by the nurse. Nature
will effect the cure, if care is taken to feed and
tend the patient while she is operating her very
reluctant and tardy cure; but a sheep must
be extremely valuable to pay for three months
constant attention. I should add, that I bled
the lambs I mentioned, and gave them a doze
of train oil; but I have no reason to think that
either of these had any agency in the cure.

The purging which sheep are subject to in
the spring of the year, and which arises from
their change of food, I do not consider as a
diseaseof any consequence, and except this and
the staggers I know of none that prevails in our
flocks when properly nourished. When they
are ill kept, they sometimes take colds and dis-

Essen/ on Sheep. lOi)

charge a mucus from the nose. Good feeding
and pine boiighs, or tar and salt, administered
in the manner 1 have mentioned, will cure this
complaint.

It is frequently asked, what quantity of Ibod,
either dry or green, is necessary for a given
number of sheep? and the inquiry is not a mere
matter of curiosity, but its answer very import-
ant to the farmer, as it enables him to adapt his
stock to his means of support. The British
writers are not so accurate on this subject as one
could wish, and as they generally are in what-
ever relates to rural economy. This is owing to
the manner of feeding their sheep for the most
part on turneps eaten on the ground, on old grass
fields, and only occasionally on hay. Happily,
however, this interesting question is answered
by Daubenton, a celebrated French agricultu-
ralist, in such a manner as to leave me nothing
to do but to transcribe his work. '' I confined,
*' in a small space, two sheep, about twenty
** inches high (the height of most woolled ani-
^' mals in France). By way of experiment, I
'* caused the sheep to be fed, during eight days,
" solely upon grass newly cut, and weighed be-
** fore placed in their rack. Care was taken to
" pick up, and place in it back again, all that the
*' sheep let fall, and to weigh that which they

110 Essay on Sheep.

" would not eat in consequence of its being too
*' tough, or because it possessed some bad qua-
^' lity. From this trial, frequently repeated, it
*' appeared that a sheep of the middle stature
" eats about eight pounds of grass in a day.
^^ The same experiments, conducted with the
*' same preciseness, in regard to the fodders of
** hay or straw, have proved, that a sheep of
'' middling height likewise eats daily two
** pounds of hay, or two pounds and a half
" of straw.

" In order to ascertain how many pounds of
^' grass go to one pound of hay, I caused the
" grass to be weighed as soon as cut; it was then
'^ spread on cloths exposed to the sun, so that
" none might be lost, though at the same time
*' well dried. Being thus converted into hay,
■' I found its weight reduced to one-fourth;
** eight pounds of grass had only given two
" pounds of hay,

'' Agriculturalists know how many cart loads,
'^ or trusses, a field can produce; consequently
** they may judge how many sheep it can
"' maintain in hay or in grass. They have a
^' rule then for proportioning the number of
" their sheep to the quantity of pasture and
" fodder tliey can supply them with.

*^ Having determined the quantity of solid

Essay on Sheep, 111

'* food essential to the good regimen of the
'* woolled kind, I made other experiments upon
*' these animals, in order to know at what time
'* they should drink.

" It is well known that they seldom drink
" when they feed upon fresh grass, but stand in
" want of water when fed on dry meat. Dif-
" ferent opinions are pursued as to the proper
** time for watering them. In some countries
*' they are taken to water once or twice every
*^ day; in others not for one, two, three, four;,
^' or even five days. By the following experi-
** ments, I have endeavoured to ascertain which
" of all these regimens, so different from each
" other, is entitled to preference.

'' I shut up in a stable, in the depth of win-
" ter, a small flock, of which all the sheep were
" marked with a number. They were kept,
" night and day, without being suflfered to quit
" it, and fed with a mixture of straw and of hay,
" without any other aliment. Each day a shep-
" herd carried in his arms, successively, some
" sheep out of the stable, to let them drink in
" my presence, out of a vessel guaged at dif-
*' ferent heights, and then took them back into
^' the stable, when they had either drank or
"^ refused to drink.

'^ By this method I knew how much water

11^ Essaif on Sheep.

" the sheep had taken, when presented whh it,
" once, twice or thrice each day, or only once
** in two, three, four, or five days.

*' Most oi the sheep in this little flock passed
"^ a month in the stable without drinking: their
*' appetite was always the s^me, and they expe-
" rienced no other inconvenience than that of
'' thirst, of which they gave evident proofs by
^' running to lick the moist lips of those carried
" back to the stable on return from drinking.

" The result of these experiments, which I
^^ cannot here detail, led me to conclude, that
^' sheep, with no other nourishment than that
^^ of dry hay, and within reach of water, could
" pass days without drinking; but they would
" take a greater quantity of water the following
'* day than if they had drank the eveniiig be-
** fore: this quantity increases to a certain de-
*^ gree if they have been deprived of water for
'^ many days together. They are then tor-
" mented with thirst, for they are eager to get
'* a drop of water; if they could find it in
'' abundance, they would drink too plentifully
'^ for their temperament, subject as they are to
" cflusions of serosity, which produce mortal
^ hydatides in the brain, and the rot, a disease
" no less fatal.

" The best plan is to drive the flock every

Essaij on Sheep. 1 13

*' day to the pond, and to make it pass slowly,
"without stopping there: by this method it
'' will be found that the sheep who really want
" to drink will be the only ones who will drink.

" In countries where water is scarce, it fre-
" quently happens that the pond, if far distant,
" and the flock cannot be driven to it without
" being fatigued ; in this case they may pass
" many days without drinking; but when fed
" only upon dry meat, it must not be delayed
" too long.

" This aliment differs much from fresh grass,
*^ in consequence of the loss of moisture by dry-
*' ing; yet sheep take daily the same quantity
" of solid food, whether in grass or in hay. In
" the experiments before mentioned, I found
" their appetite perfectly equal, for they eat
" eight pounds of grass, or two corresponding
" pounds of hay, which I found to be the pro-
" duct of eight pounds of grass. The evapo-
" ration which is carried on during the making
" of the hay, takes off three-fourths of the sub-
" stance of grass in fluid particles; thus the
" sheep which eats two pounds of hay is de-
*' prived of six pounds of liquid aliment, which
*' it would have had by eating eight pounds of
'■' grass. It supplies a part of this deficiency
*' bv drinking about three pounds of water

15

1 1 4« Essay on Sheep.

'^ when fed upon hay; but this water is not in
" sufficient quantity, and possesses not the same
*' quality as the liquid of the grass evaporated
^^ in drying.

'^ There can be no doubt that this difference
^' in regimen is productive of bad effects. I
^^ shall mention some proofs of it, which are
'^ indeed too evident and too frequent.

" In countries where the snow remains upon
'^ the ground for one or two months, the cattle
" are reduced to dry fodder so long as it lasts;
^' then the weaker sheep, and chiefly the lambs,
" the sheep of the second year, the pregnant
'' ewes, and those in milk, languish and drop
" off. Shepherds denote this miserable state by
*^ saying, they melt their fat: they certainly
"' grow very lean, and fall off in great num-
'^ bers.

'^ I have often reflected upon the cause of
" this evil, and the means of preventing it,
" After having prosecuted every inquiry I could
" think of, it appeared to me to arise solely
" from a change of diet too suddenly effected.
" In one day the sheep are reduced from eight
^'pounds of grass to about two pounds of dry
** fodder and three pounds of water. They
" are thus deprived, therefore, all at once, of
^' three-eighths of their wonted nourishment.

Essay on Sheep. 11$

^' and these three-eighths composed the half of
'' the fluid part of it.

" According to my experience of the quan-
" tity of water taken by sheep, it appears that
" their drink can only supply one-half of the
" liquid which grass contains more than hay.
" It would be dangerous to excite them to drink
" a greater quantity of water, because they are
" very subject to infiltrations. We must, there-
" fore, endeavour to supply them with at least
'' a small quantity of fresh food every day, in
*' order to correct the bad effects resulting from
*' dry meat.

" The most sensible of these bad efl'ects ap-
** pears in the third stomach, composed in the
'^ interior of a great number of membraneous
" folds, detached one from another, although
'^ it is only from eight to ten inches in circum-
*^ fercnce when filled with air. During rumi-
*' nation, the food passes from the throat into
^' this third stomach, and spreads amongst all
^' these folds. I have there found it very fre-
'' quently parched, and almost withered, in
" many sheep which I have dissected.

" This aliment, after having been ruminated,
** receives, in the third stomach of the sheep,
'^ and of other animals that chew the cud, a
♦^ preparation for digestion, which latter take.*?

116 Essay on Sheep.

^^ place only in the fourth stomach. The ali-
" ment is dry in the third stomach, not only
" when the animal is fed solely upon dry meat,
*' which has not furnished sufficient liquid, but
" also when attacked by some disease causing
" too great heat, and consequently too great
'* evaporation of the liquids necessary to diges-
" tion. In these cases, bad digestion, and the
" evils attending it, maybe prevented by giving
*' some green food at least once a day.

^' At all times when the ground is not covered
*' with snow, sheep find upon it sufficient fresh
'* food to render it unnecessary to give them
'' any in the rack with their dry meat, in a bad
^' season. I have often stopped in the midst of
*' a flock, in fields half covered with snow,
" where no grass whatever was to be seen ; the
^* sheep, however, having their eyes near the
" ground, perceived the points of some leaves,
*' and scratched with their feet to find more of
" the plant; they then seized it with their teeth,
'* and sometimes pulled up the roots along with
'' the leaves. But when the snow entirely co~
^' vers the ground to a certain thickness, there
" is no other recourse than in the plants which
" arc high enough to enable the sheep easily
"to remove the snow which covers them.
" There arc many kinds of cabbages, such

Ksmy on Sheep, 117

*' as the fringed cabbage, which are very tall;
" they resist the frost, and their leaves contain
" much juice. These form an indifferent arti-
'* cle of food for sheep in times when they are
*^ not reduced to dry meat; but, if confined to
" this aliment, a few of the leaves of these plants
** will be found sufficient to obviate its prejudi-
** cial effects.

** It is difficult to have a quantity of these
" cabbages sufficient for numerous flocks; they
*^ require to be sown, transplanted, and watered
** for many days; and this culture must be re-
'' peated every year, which is too tedious and
*' expensive for the husbandman. Whatever
*' advantage may attend the use of cabbages as
'' a diet for sheep, I would not recommend this
'' plant as fodder, had I not met with a species
'' of cabbage which may be reared without sow-
^' ing, without transplanting, or watering. It
^' is equally unknown to the naturalist and to
'' the agriculturalist. Like the fringed cabbage,
" it resists the frosts; and, for cattle, is preferable
" to it, being very easily cultivated. It may be
'' propagated by cutting; it is only necessary
*^ to slip off its lateral branches, which are nu~
*' merous, and plant them in the earth, to have,
" in a short time, new plants over the whole
*' extent of a well cultivated field. The leaves

118 Essay on Sheep.

** are less than those of other cabbages, but the
*' juice they contain is as abundant; they are
^' equally good food for the shepherd as well
^' as his flock. Some handfuls of these leaves
*' given to a sheep, will correct the bad effects
*^ of dry food.

" The regimen of sheep is one of the im-
^ portant branches of veterinary medicine. This
" science is to be established only by well-
^* founded experience, with observation and
" experiment frequently repeated on these ani-
" mals. An intimate acquaintance with them
'* in their natural state, is necessary before at-
^' tempting to cure their diseases,"

( n9 )

CHAPTER III.

MERINO SHEEP,

One of the principal objects of this Essay
being to impress upon my fellow citizens the
importance of cultivating this most valuable
breed of sheep, I propose to devote this chapter
to them, in addition to what I have already
offered.

One of the first ideas that strikes the farmer
is, that his sheep may degenerate, and that if
the quality of their wool should change, he
would have put himself to great expense to
change a sheep of better size and form for one
which he imagines to be inferior in both; and
he is strengthened in this opinion by having
observed, that most of the British sheep that
have from time to time been brought here, have
degenerated. This I confess very generally to
have happened, but I deny that any inference
injurious to the Merino breed can be drawn
from it. The British sheep here alluded to are
the long-wool] ed, for no others were thought
better than our own. This race of sheep can

120 Essay on Sheep.

only be advantageously maintained on rich and
luxuriant pastures, and an ample supply of suc-
culent food during the winter. Experience
has taught us that rich pastures will add to the
length and quality of wool on our native sheep,
and that bad keeping will diminish it. With-
out attention to this circumstance, the long-
woolled sheep have been transferred from the
fens and marshes of England and Holland to
our dry, short, sweet pastures; from which it
was expected that, labouring under a thick coat
of long wool, and contending with our sum-
mer sun, they should be able to fill their large
carcases. Not having pastures adapted to their
size and their habits, they could not subsist but
by gradually accommodating themselves to
ours. This necessarily occasioned a diminution,
first in the quality of the wool, and next in the
size of their descendants; besides, that it was
very rare to obtain the full bred sheep, both
rams and ewes, and to preserve them unmixed.
If the rams bred with our ewes, their progeny
would soon be reduced to the size of the ewes;
directly, because of the mixture, and, indi-
rectly, from the ewes not being able to afford
nourishment to a larger stock than nature de-
signed her to supj)ort, without the most uncom-
mon care in feeding her w^hile she gave milk.

Essay on Sheep. 121

It Is always for this reason very injudicious to
breed from the females of any stock of a race
inferior in size to that of the sire, since they
will in such case necessarily degenerate. The
reverse will take place where the ewes are larger
than the stock from which the rams spring.
The lambs being abundantly nourished, will,
by degrees, attain the size of the dam, while
they preserve the other peculiarities of the sire.
It is by attention to this circumstance that I
have already greatly improved my Merino stock
in size and beauty, when I have bred them in
the fourth generation from the iinest ewes of
the country; and where I bred from imported
ewes I have attained the same object, by afford-
ing them a plentiful supply of food while they
nourished their young. As these ewes were
themselves of the largest stock of Merinoes, I
have gradually added to the size of their pro-
geny; and I have now full-bred Merinoes at
Clermont that are larger than the common
sheep of the country; and my half and three-
quarter-breed wethers are, when stripped of their
coats, larger and much handsomer than most
of our native flocks. AVhen the fleeces are on,
there is some deception in judging of long-
woolled wethers, as they seem larger, and their
defects are concealed by their covering; where-
in

1£2 Essay on Sheep,

as the short, close wool of the Merino shows
his shape precisely.

• But to return to the question of the degene-
ration of the Merino sheep. So far as a scar-
city of food may, as I have said, operate a
change for the worse in sheep, it cannot apply
to the Merino when introduced into our coun-
try; because, not requiring better pastures than
our own sheep, there is no reason for the change
of size, at least such change as the wool of those
sheep that have been introduced from Britain
has undergone: this was a change in the quan-
tity rather than in the quality. When a sheep
diminished in size, it would have been a verv
unwise provision of nature to have suffered him
to carry the same quantity of wool which he
bore upon a larger and a stronger carcass; his
w^ool, therefore, diminished in length in the
same manner that his carcass did in size; but
the quality of the wool remained the same, or;,
if any thing, changed for the better. So if the
large and improved breed of Merinoes were
kept upon very scanty pastures, they would di-
minish in size, and carry shorter fleeces; but
those fleeces, even under the worst keeping,
would still retain all their original properties.
We are often told of the influence of climate
m effecting changes: that it operates I can be-

Kssay on Slieep, 123

lieve, but T also believe tl.at it operates very
slowly, and that until experience has determin-
ed the fact, it is impossible to say whether that
operation will be for the better or for the worse.
For my own part, I believe that the change in
the Merino sheep brought into any northern
country, provided they are plentifully fed, will
be for the better, and particularly when brought
hito this State, where the pastures are good, the
air and waters pure, the winters cold, and the
summer range furnished with shade. I should
have presumed this in reasoning a priori , and 1
have found my theory confirmed by actual ex-
periment.

I am now to mention a circumstance on
which I ground my reasoning, which may ap-
pear fanciful to those who have not attended to
the proofs of the improvement of Merino sheep
in high latitudes. The Merino differs more
essentially from every other kind of sheep than
the Spanial does from the Mastiff, and yet no
one has seen any change in either of those spe-
cies of dogs in a course of generations, or in
any climate, except by intermixture of the
breeds. I say the Merino differs essentially from
all other sheep, and even from all other quad-
rupeds of which we have any knowledge, as
an annual docs from a perennial plant. All

124 Essay on Sheep.

quadrupeds change their coats every year, and
indeed generally twice a year: the Merino
sheep never changes his coat; on the contrary,
it will continue to grow from year to year, and
at the end of the third year the fleece will yield
a three years crop, with little or no diminution.
This experiment has been tried in France, in
Switzerland, and in England, for the course of
three years successively, and always with the
same result. The wool of this sheep then re-
sembles in its duration human hair, and may
probably be subject to the same physical laws.
Human hair is affected by the tissue of the skin
through which it passes. In warm climates the
hair of man is generally black and coarse; in
cold ones we find flaxen, yellow, and various
shades of brown, to be the prevalent colours;
and even where the hair takes a deeper shade,
it is finer than the lank black hair of the south.
May not this be owing in some sort to the skin
being more braced in one and more lax in the
other? and will it not produce the same effect
upon the wool of an animal whose fleece is pe-
rennial, particularly if the food and air invigo-
rate at the very time that the climate braces
the fibres? It is said that the wool of the com-
mon sheep is sometimes coarser, as he is either
well or ill fed. This may happen if he is cither

Essay on Sheep. 125

sickly or in full health, or if the weather Is
more or less cold when the young wool pro-
ti'udes through the skin: if in that state it is
compressed, it will be fine; if it finds an easy
passage, it will be coarse; and as the wool of
common sheep is an annual production, it may
frequently vary. But the fleece which never
falls off must be subject to very few changes; it
may be longer or shorter, but the root being the
same, it will probably be liable to no changes
but such as arise from the greater or less com-
pression of the skin through which it passes.
Cold then will have a tendency to render the
wool fine; heat and moisture to make it coarse.
The marten, the grey-squirrel, the common fox,
&c. have much finer fur in Siberia and Hudson's
Bay, than they have in Virginia or Pennsylvania,
and yet they are exactly the same animal. It
is true, the men of very high latitudes have
similar hair to those near the line, and probably
this is owing to the same cause : in summer they
are exposed to the continued rays of the sun,
without the intervention of night, which must
greatly relax them: their winter is a continued
night, in which the children at least are con-
fined to a smoaky hut; their diet is slender and
relaxing ; and the general habit of covering their
heads and greasing tlieir bodies must necessarily

126 Essay on Sheep.

tend to unbrace the skin and give an easy pas*
sage to the hair. We find an exact analogy be-
tween the effect of climate upon the covering
of sheep and that of other quadrupeds. The
sheep under the line are hairy; as you go north
they become woolly, and farther north the
wool is finest; the best wool in Germany is that
of Saxony. The moist climate of England and
Ireland produces long and coarse wool. It is
true that fine wool is also found in Persia, and
in Cassimere and Thibet, but this is only in the
very cold and mountainous parts of those coun^
tries. The sheep of Siberia are coarse-haired,
but they have below that hair a coat of extremely
fine wool; they are the Mouflon, or Argali, al-
most in their native state, in which man has taken
little pains to cultivate the wool at the expense
of the hair, but permitted them to grow toge-
ther; and indeed in that state it is best adapted
to the wants of the inhabitants, who know not the
use of the loom, but wear the skin of the sheep,
in which case the hair is as useful as the wool;
for it protects them, as it did its original owner,
against rain and snow, which would penetrate
the wool were it not covered by a surtout of
hair: it is then probable that the Merino sheep
docs not owe its peculiar excellence to the cli-
mate of Spain, or to the mode oi treatment.

Essay on Sheep. I21

Spain, as I have said, contains a great number
of long-woollcd sheep, hi every respect differ-
ent from the Merino: the climate has had no
effect in mehorating their fleeces; the migration
does not contribute to it. Tliey have in various
parts of Spain, and particularly in Estramadura,
Merinoes that never migrate, and whose wool
is not inferior to that of the migrating sheep;
and they have both in France and Italy migrat-
jng sheep whose wool is not fine.

When nature forms a change in any species
of plants or animals, it does so very slowly, and
always in such a way as better to adapt them to
the climate in which they are to be naturalized.
Thus, some plants which are perennial in warm
climates, both root and branch are annuals in
colder ones; or while the roots of others survive
the winter, their stems are annually renewed.
The same plant will form a tree in one climate
and a shrub in another. This I have myself
witnessed in the fig, which I have seen of the
size of a bearing apple-tree, while a little more
north it was a shrub of very moderate size. If
then the fur of quadrupeds and the hair of man
are finer in high than in low latitudes, why, if
the climate effects any change in the Meri-
noes, should it not be for the better? My own
experience has not been so great as to permit

]2B Essai/ on Sheep.

me to build much upon it, since my sheep were
only introduced in 1802; but as far as it goes,
it leads me to believe in the amelioration of the
sheep, either from the effects of climate, or from
attention. The original stock were chosen with
very peculiar care in France, after the most
careful examination of their descendants; they
have improved in size, beauty of form, and
quantity and quality of the fleece. The two
first improvements are too obvious to admit of
the least doubt; the last requires so nice a dis-
crimination as to make the decision more diffi-
cult in all but one instance, where the difference
is so striking as to be evident to every observer.
I refer to a ram lamb of the last spring, who is
out of an imported ewe, while his sire (who is
also by the same dam) was bred upon my farm.
This lamb is of the most uncommon size and
beauty; his fleece, compared with that of any
other of my improved sheep, or with any
sample that I have been able to obtain of others,
is indisputably much finer, and, at the same
time, so long and abundant, that I have little
doubt of his yielding at least eight pounds of
wool the first shearing.* I imported the summer
before last a very fine ram, whose fleece has, by

^^ He lias been sliovn since tliis v.ei.t to tlie press, and gave nine pounds six
ounces of woof.

Essay on Sheep. 129

the best judges, been pronounced superior to
any they had examined; yet his wool is cer-
tainly not better than that of the lamb I speak
of; and this is the more extraordinary, as the
Merino lamb's fleece is never so fine as his sub*
sequent growth.

The account I have already given of the
flock at Rambouillet shows, that instead of de-
generating they have greatly improved in the
fineness of their fleeces. Dr. Parry, who has
lately written a treatise on the Merino sheep in
England, acknowledges that the wool of the
Rambouillet flock is finer than that imported
from Spain, and speaks of this flock in the
highest terms of admiration: he also adds, that
the flock of Lord Somervile, and of his Britan-
nic Majesty, as well as his own flock of Meri-
noes in the fourth generation (fifteen-sixteenths),
are finer than the wool brought from Spain to
England, and proves it by showing that it re-
quires two pounds of imported wool to make
one yard of the finest British broadcloth, and
that he has made from his Merinoes upwards
of twenty-six and a half yards from forty-two
pounds. This is something more than one
pound nine ounces to the yard. If I was to
determine the fineness of my flock by the same
rule, I should exceed both, since the same

17

ISO ^ssay on Sheep.

quantity of cloth was made at Clermont by com-
mon country spinners and weavers from one
pound four ounces of Clermont Merino wool;
and thirty-two and a half yards of twenty-five
-and a half inches wide, were made in Mr. Ed-
ward P. Livingston's family from sixteen and
three-fourths pounds of wool.

In the year 1723 Merino sheep were carried
to Sweden, where they have greatly multiplied,
and retained their original purity. If long cold
winters, and even bad keeping, would change
them for the worse, they would have experi-
enced that change in upwards of eighty years,
during which they have so greatly multiplied
as to have stopped the importation of Spanish
Wool into Sweden. Indeed, the experience of
a number of other nations has put it out of doubt,
that the Merino sheep do not degenerate by be-
ing carried to a cold climate. This fact being
once established, what is to stop their progress
in our own country? I have already shown
how the most indigent cultivator may, in the
course of a few years, convert his common sheep
into Mcrinoes, not only without expense, but
with profit. If he fears that they are more de-
licate, and require more care than our common
sheep, I can assure him, from my own expe-
rience, that though like all others they v/ill be

Essarj on Sheep, 131,

the better for being well kept, yet they will not
SiiiFer more from neglect; their thick and close
fleeces fit them for bearing cold, and they will
in every mixed flock be found among the most
thrifty in the severest weather. The objec*
tion to their size I have shown to be ill found-
ed, if he draw his stock from the improved
Merino; and even if he begins with one of
the small race, he will, in some years, by
breeding out of good ewes, advance gradually
to the size of the dams. Nor let him be under
the least apprehension that he will not in this
way have as fine wool as if he bred out of full-
blood ewes. It is now so well established as
not even to admit of the smallest doubt, that a
Merino in the fourth generation, from even the
worst wooUed ewes, is in every respect equal to
the stock of the sire. No diflcrence is now
made in Europe in the choice of a ram, whe-
ther he is a full-bred or fifteen-sixteenths. In-
deed, Dr. Parry maintains, from his own expe-
rience, that they are superior to full-blood rams.
He says that the wool of his flock (which con-
sists of sheep in the fourth generation from the
Ryeland ewes) was injured when he put a fine
full-blood Spanish ram to it; and asserts, that
any person beginning a stock with an imported
ram, will be eight years behind one that begins

132 Essay on Sheep.

with a fifteen-sixteenths of the Ryeland Meri*
no; and I can easily believe that there is some
justice in the remark, since I cannot conceive
that one-sixteenth of common blood, which will
only be one-thirty-second in the offspring, can
make any difference in the fleece; whereas con-
siderable difference may be occasioned in the
beauty and vigour of the flock by the ram hav-
ing been bred, for four generations, from ewes
of the country, assimilated to the climate and to
the manner of keeping.

As I have mentioned the Ryeland ewes as the
basis on which Dr. Parry formed his stock, it
will be proper to give some description of them,
otherwise it might be thought that they pos-
sessed some peculiar excellencies not to be
found in our sheep. An account of them is
inserted in the Annals of Agriculture, vol. xx.
p. 15. They are short- woolled sheep, yielding
fleeces of from one and a half to two pounds.
The best of these fleeces sell at two shillings
and six-pence sterling the pound, without the
breachlngs; they weigh, when fat, fourteen
pounds a quarter. From this description it is
pretty clear that they are not better than our
short-woolled New-England sheep, and yield
less wool. It has always appeared to me, that our
native stock has been injured in this State, and

Essay on Sheep, 133

in many other places, by crossing them with
long-woolled sheep; and upon this idea I have
founded the recommendation I have offered of
short-woolled sheep, as forming the best stock
wliereon to graft the Merino breed, provided
the ewes are large and well made.

Having mentioned Dr. Parry's concurrence
with the French agriculturalists in the opinion
that the breed is completely changed in the
fourth generation, I should add, that he men-
tions one instance in which it was not. This
was of a Merino bred on a Cape ewe. But I
think this proves nothing, because a Cape ewe
has not wool, but hair; and because he had no
means to ascertain that the sample shown him
had really undergone no other cross. The
French agriculturalists say, that however coarse
the fleece of the parent ewe may have been, the
progeny in the fourth generation will not show
it: and, indeed, I have seen, and deposited with
the Society of Useful Arts, samples of wool from
sheep of every description that could be pro-
cured in France crossed by Merinoes, and can
discern no dliference between those in the fourth
degree and the original stock. It follows then,
that any farmer may, in the space of six or se-
ven years, convert his common flock into Me-
rinoes, with this great advantage, that during

134 lE!.ssay on Sheep,

the whole of his progress he is annually adding
to the value of his fleeces, and selling off old
sheep instead of lambs, thus reimbursing him-
self for the expense of his ram, which is the only
extra expense he has sustained; and he is also
parting with a number of male lambs at a
higher price than hew^as accustomed to receive
for those of his old stock. The wool of a com-
mon flock barely pays the keeping ; their only
profit arises from the sale of sheep and lamb^
which, supposing the flock to consist of fifty ewos
and fifty wethers and rams, and that thirty-five
are sold off* yearly, which is as many as can be
calculated upon with those necessary to keep up
the stock, the clear profit will be seventy dollars
upon one hundred sheep. An half-blood flock
will bring, in the increase of quantity and
value of the fleece, one dollar and more upon
each sheep,* even counting the sales of lambs
at the rate of common sheep. The second year
then, the purchaser of a ram will receive one
hundred and seventy dollars profit, instead of
seventy. When the flocks are three-fourths
breed, his wool will rise to eighty-one cents in
the pound. (I state the lowest rate, mine of that
grade sells at one dollar). This will give him a

* Tlie (VifTcTeuci' of profit hetw ecn tlic half-brccd aiul tiie common sTicep,»
St my last shearing, was tvo dollars and aix ccnlTS pa* licad.

Essay on Sheep. 133

tjlear profit of one dollar and fifty cents per head
beyond the vahie of his old fleece, or one hun-
dred and fifty dollars added to the price of sheep
sold at seventy, bringing his profit to two hun-
dred and twenty dollars clear of all expense*
When his flock consists of seven-eighths breed
sheep, his wool will rise to one dollar and twenty-
five cents the pound; I sell mine at one dollar
and fifty cents. Supposing the fleeces of his
€wes and wethers, taken together, to weigh
three and a half pounds, his flock will bring
him, after deducting all expenses, which I rate
at one dollar and fifty cents per head, two dol*
lars and seventy-five cents each, exclusive of
Iambs; that is, two hundred and seventy-five
dollars; which, added to the sheep sold, seventy
dollars, makes a clear profit of three hundred
and forty-five dollars annually. When his flock
are full-bred, he will receive two dollars per
pound for his wool, which, at three and a half
pounds the fleece,* will give him seven dollars
per head, or, deducting the keeping, five and
'a half dollars; that is, five hundred and fifty
dollars, added to sheep sold, seventy, making
an annual profit of six hundred and twenty dol-
lars instead of seventy, which his common sheep

* Mine avei'ageii the last shearing npwavds of five pounds the ewe's fleece.

13^ Essay on Sheep.

would have brought him. In this I have stated
nothing for the increased value of the lambs
sold, lest it should be said that no sale may offer
for them. This, however, is an error, in a coun-
try so rapidly increasing as ours, and which does
not grow one-fifth of the wool necessary for its
own consumption; and when all the stock of
sheep will be converted by intelligent farmers
into Merinoes, there will be a demand for lambs
for at least twenty years, at an advanced price;
so that I have no hesitation in saying, that the
profit upon the lambs will be more than equal
to thatof the wool. To state the account fairly
then, the annual profit should be doubled.
Provided the farmer sets out with the best stock,
and takes care to breed only from good ewes,
he will find demand for any number he may
wish to part with.

I have already anticipated what it was neces-
sary to say as to the choice of the ram, and the
manner of forming and keeping a flock. It
may, however, be said, that when this breed is
more diffused, the price of the wool will fall.
I am not of this opinion, because, besides our
own, there will be a foreign demand. This
wool now sells in England at seven shillings and
three-pence sterling, and is constantly rising.
But admit that it should fall, it is certam that

Essay on Sheep. 137

common wool will fall much more rapidly; be-
cause, when habituated to fine soft clotli, few
will wear the harsh, hard, heavy clothing we
» are now content with, p irticularly if fine wool
IS reduced in price. The relative difierence
between the Merino and common sheep will
not change; if the Merino wool brings less, tlie
common wool will not bring enough to pay for
the keeping of the sheep.

So much respect is due to the opinion of Mr.
Custis, who has laboured with great zeal and
success in the improvement of sheep, that it
cannot but be proper here to state and consider
his reflections on the Merino breed of sheep,
contained in his very valuable publication. He
thinks that the Merino breed will not be gene-
rally extended, because of the high price at
which the rams are held; one hundred dollars
being, as he supposes, the price of a ram, which
was that at which they were sold when he
wrote, but they have since risen to one hundred
and fifty dollars. The reverse I conceive to be
the ca e; the high value at which they are rated
will continue in two ways to extend the breed.
First, by yielding a great profit to the breeder;
and, next, by introducing more from abroad.
If a farmer believes he can sell his half-blood
rams or ewes at twelve dollars, their present price.

138 Essay on Sheep.

he will more readily purchase a ram at one
hundred and fifty dollars, than he would have
bought him atone hundred, if he could only sell
his lambs at two dollars. One ram will bring him
fifty lambs; this, at twelve dollars, is six hun--
dred dollars: with a ram at ten dollars he could
have fifty lambs, worth two dollars, which is
one hundred dollars; deduct the price of the
ram, and in one case he gains ninety, and in
the other four hundred and fifty dollars the first
year; the second year he gains in the one case
one hundred, and in the other six hundred
dollars, the expense of keeping being the
same in both stocks. It was not till the price
of rams rose very high that any important im-
provement was made in British sheep, and this
is precisely the case in this State. All the full-
bred rams of tlie Clermont stock were bespoke
before the first of January, at one hundred and
fifty dollars; and one thousand dollars has been
refused for the ram Itimb of ten months old that
I have before mentioned, and two hundred for
his brother, dropped at Christmas, and only
three weeks old when the ofter was made by
an cnliq-htened finniier of Massachusetts. What
is all farming but an adv^ance made with a view
to future prolitr No man refuses to sow wheat
because the seed is dearer than rye. A rich

Essay on Sheep, 1 39

Virginia farmer, who puts in one hundred acres
of wheat, cannot estimate the ploughing, har-
rowing, seed, and liarvesting, at less than five
dollars and hfty cents per acre; his returns, if I
rightly remember the information I received
from our departed hero, Washington, will fall
short of seven bushels to tlie acre; thrashincy and
carrying to market will amount to about fifty
cents more; so that upon a capital of five hun-
dred dollars he seldom receives two hundred,
taking wheat at its average price for the ten
years last past. This falls greatly short of the
profit upon the amount of two Merino rams
put to one hundred ewes, if the lambs were sold
at the rate I mention; but putting the lambs
out of the question, and supposing the profit
to be made only upon the fleeces, then a far-
mer who had a fine flock of sixty ewes, averag-
ing three and a half pounds of wool, worth
thirty-seven and a half cents, that is, one dollar
thirty-one and a quarter cents each, (the lambs
paying the expense of keeping,) would, by put-
ting the same ewes to Merino rams of the im-
proved breed, gain a stock of lambs which
would the first year give him fleeces weighing
four pounds, worth seventy-five cents the pound,
and a ready market: thus he would gain upon
-sixty ewes half the price of his raai the first

1 40 Essay on Sheep.

year, and progressively more every year as he
teformed his stock.

The second objection to the Merino is the
high price of his wool, which Mr. Custis sup-
poses can only be adapted to the use of the
rich, while the low price of the common wool
j5ts it for general consumption. If Meruio wool
can be raised as cheap as that from common
sheep, it comes at least as cheap to the grower,
and therefore he may wear a coat of fine wool
at no greater expense than one of coarse cloth;
and there can be no sort of doubt that if it
is manufactured exactly as the other, tlie
coarse cloth made from fine w^ool will outlast
two made from harsher materials, and, at the
same time, be warmer. If blankets and flan-
nels arc a domestic manufacture, both these
articles will come as cheap to the growlers of the
wool as if made from the long-wool led sheep,
and certainly will be infinitely warmer and
lighter. If a man*s land is such as to bring him
a good crop of wheat, he certainly will not sow
rye or buckwheat, but will prefer wheaten
bread for his family; or, if he is an economist,
he will sell his wheat and buy rye. Is it not
exactly the same with Merino wool? If he is
in easy circumstances, he will manufacture it,
and sell the excess beyond what he wants for

Essay on Sheep. 141

his own consumption, at such a price as will
pay his weaver, his dyer, his dresser of cloth,
his tailor, and perhaps as much more as to pay
for the keeping of his sheep: whereas, if he
raises common sheep, unless he keeps much
larger flocks than are necessary for his own use,
he has nothing to pay these expenses; nor in-
deed, in the northern States, whatever be the
size of his flock, can he sell any thing, since the
fleece hardly pays the keeping. Ten Merino
sheep beyond those whose fleeces he empl ys,
will give him thirty-five pounds of wool, which
will sell at seventy dollars, the present price of
Merino wool being two dollars the pound. 1 his
will not only pay for that part of the manufac-
ture of cloth which is done out of the family,
but will leave him an excess for other purposes.
There are few farmers that cannot spare the
wool of ten sheep; but if these were even very
good common sheep, their fleeces, at three
pounds, would amount to no more than fifteen
dollars; so that he must draw upon some other
fund to pay the tradesmen employed in cloth-
ing his family. Which stock of sheep then is
best adapted alike to the poor and the rich?
certainly that which, after furnishing the ma-
terial, pays for making the cloth by the high
price at which a small excess is sold, Mr.

1 42 Essay on Sheep.

Custis, however, presumes that much larger
fleeces are obtained from other sheep, particu-
larly from the Smith's Island and the Arling-
ton. It is possible that Mr. Custis has drawn
this inference from not having seen the im-
proved Merino breed, and perhaps in this
view his deduction may be less erroneous; but
from the account I have given, on the best au-
thority, of the flock at Rambouillet, it appears
that they carry heavier fleeces of fine short wool
than the Arlington breed do of long wool. I
infer this from the letter of Mr. Foote, which
is contained in the pamphlet: from his ac-
count five and a half pounds of wool, of about
twelve inches in length, is the average of ewe
lamb's wool in the first year, when the fleece
is always the heaviest; because, instead of one
year, it is generally of fourteen months growth.
Mr. Lasteyrie, in his report to the National In-
stitute in the year 1802, states, that the medium
weight of full grown nursing ewes was eight
pounds seven ounces; of the ewes of three years
old which had no lambs, nine pounds thirteen
ounces; and two-tenths ewes, ten and a half
pounds. Now, making every allowance for the
greater quantity of dirt contained in flocks kept
as those in France are, I think we may state
their weight as at least equal to those of Mr.

Essay o?i Sheep. 1 43

Foote's ewes; and yet Mr. Foote's sheep are
evidently superior to the sheep of the country,
whose average, under similar circumstances,
would certainly not exceed three and a half
pounds. My own, however, have not been so
high as Mr. Lasteyrie^s, and have not fallen
much short of Mr. Footers. Three full-bred
ewes, all having lambs, gave the year before last
eleven pounds and three quarters, or near four
pounds each. Last year I did not keep a se-
parate account, but as they were in better order,
I think the average was near five pounds.
This year seven fleeces, after ihey had been
soaked twenty hours, and then washed in warm
water, weighed twenty-six pounds, but this in-
cluded two ram fleeces. Supposing them to
have lost no more than common wool would
have done, which, by such perfect washing,
would not have been less than one third, they
would then have weighed five pounds, which
falls only half a pound short of the Arling-
ton sheep. These seven fleeces would have
sold for fifty-two dollars cash; whereas seven
of Mr. Footers fleeces, reduced one third by
washing, would only have produced (selling at
the usual price, thirty-six cents a pound) eigh-
teen and a half dollars; and yet his sheep,
being larger, would have demanded more

144? Essay on Sheep.

keepin-^. If this is to be observed of one of
the finest American flocks how much greater
will be the balance in favour of the Clermont
Merinoes, when they are set in opposition to
the sheep of the country? It is also an error
to suppose tliat there is little consumption of
fine cloth in this country. There are few
people in our cities who wear such cloth as
can be made from British wool, the finest of
which will not make cloth of the value of more
than thirteen shillings sterling per yard. The
first, second and third cloths are all made from
Merino wool of different grades of fineness*
Nor, if we may believe Anderson, is there any
cloth in which Merino and British wool are
mixed ; their qualities being so dissimilar, and
they shrink so diiferently in the pulling, that
they cannot be worked together. It is also a
mistake to suppose that, with the same materials,
we cannot make cloth of the same quality, and
at the same price, with that of Britain. We
now card by water, and spin with jennies; so
that much of the labour is saved. I have for
three years past been in the habit of manufac-
turing all the cloth necessary for my own use
and for the use of my very large family; and I
can say with certainty, that I can manufacture
cloth of every quality from three to ten dollars

Essay on Sheep, 1 45

per yard so much cheaper as to receive two
dollars for my fine wool, and one dollar and
fifty cents for the second, and at least one dol-
" lar for half-bred wool, and yet save 20 per cent,
upon the manufacture, besides great gain in the
superior strength of the cloth. This is very
conceivable by those who calculate the expenses
with which British manufactures are loaded be-
fore they come to us, which much more than
compensate the difference in the price of la-
bour. 1st. The manufacturer's profit. 2d. The
purchase and transportation to a sea-port. 3d.
The commission to the merchant in England.
4th. Four per cent. British duty. 5th. Freight,
^th. Insurance. 7th. American duty, seven-
teen and a half per cent. 8th. The merchant's
profit, which is never less than fifteen per cent.
9th. The retailer's profit. Take all these items
together, and they will not fall short of cent,
per cent. The difierence between the price of
labour bestowed upon a piece of cloth of any
degree of fineness in Europe or America, bears
no proportion to this: for instance, two pounds
of the finest Merino wool makes a yard of su-
perfine broadcloth, which sells in England at
twenty-four shillings sterling; the wool costs
there fourteen shillings and six-pence sterling;
the merchant's profit upon this is not less than

19

H6 Essay on Sfieej).

ten per cent, or about two shillings and five^
pence; the whole labour then employed in the
manufacture is only seven shillings and one
penny sterling. Suppose the price of labour
here to be fifty per cent, higher, which exceeds
the fact, then the price of the material being
the same, the cost of making it here should be
three-eighths more than in England, that is, three
shillings and eight-pence upon twenty-four shil-
lings; and cloth of that price, if manufactured
in the United States should sell for twenty-seven
shillings and eight-pence sterling, or about five
dollars and sixty-three cents (five shillings ster-
ling to the dollar), whereas no imported cloth of
that quality can be purchased here for less than
twelve dollars. What an immense saving then
would it be to the United States to cultivate the
breed of sheep which will furnish materials for
an article on which they now pay upwards of
100 per cent. ! what a field does it open both to
the manufacturer and the farmer! While the
one can aftbrd to give two dollars and fifty cents
per pound for wool, the other, even after hav-
ing received that advanced price, can purchase
his cloth much cheaper than he can now do,
when he sells the fleeces of his flock at thirty-
six cents per pound. But how much greater
^till will be the profit, if he manufactures his

Essay on Sheep. 147

own wool into fine cloth for the market ! I will
venture to say, that cloth of ten dollars the yard
may, in this way, be made superior in quality
to British cloth, though perhaps not quite so
well dressed, for three dollars per yard, of seven
quarters wide, and give the farmer a profit of three
dollars per pound for his wool, after allowing
one dollar as a commission to the shop-keepers
who sell his cloth. It is but justice, however,
to the sheep I have mentioned, to wit, the
Arlington breed, to observe, that their fleeces
are adapted to purposes, to w^hich those of
the Merino cannot be applied with the same
advantage; such as, the making of worsteds,
camblets, sergers, and perhaps fine blankets.
These manufactures require long combing wool,
whereas cloth demands fine short w^ool, and
one cannot be substituted for the other without
loss. Wool which is intermediate is on that
account inferior to either, as not being well
adapted to cloth, and too short for comb-
ing. This is in some sort the character of
the new Leicester or Bakewell wool; were it a
few inches longer or shorter, it would sell much
higher than it now does ; its present price in the
British market is only ten-pence sterling per
pound, and yet it is of a tolerably fine staple.
As it is my wish to direct the choice of the

148 Essay on Sheep.

farmer to such slieep as will suit his wants, it
will be proper to observe here, that if a farm
is so circumstanced as to render it inconveni-
ent to keep more sheep than will suffice to
clothe the family and employ the leisure hours
of the female part of it, I would recom-
mend not to go beyond half-breed Merinoes,
Whatever may be the stock of ewes, whether
long or short-woolled, I can with certainty as-
sert, that their lambs by Merino rams of the
improved breed will carry heavier fleeces than
the parent stock on either side. If they are
short-woolled sheep, their fleeces will not only
increase in quantity, but be much improved in
quality: if they are long-woolled, the improve-
ment will be more in the quantity and less in
the quality. But in either case, the farmer, in
addition to the increase of his wool, will find
this essential advantage in crossing, that every
fleece, if carefully sorted, will contain as much
wool as will make clolli which no gentleman
farmer need be ashamed to wear, and he will
besides have different sorts, of inferior qualities,
suited to his children and domesticks; but all
will be more uniformly good than the wool of
his old flock. Even if his flock consist of quar-
ter-breed Merinoes, he will find an essential dif-
ference both in tlie quantity and quality of his

Essay on Sheep. 149

wool. The average of my half-breed sheep is
four pounds and three-quarters; whereas, with
the same keeping, the stock irom which the
ewes came would not average more than three
and a half; and among my half-breeds are
many whose jfleeces are so fine as to make cloth
equTrt-to imported cloth which sells at four dol-
lars a yard. Sheep of this grade may be ob-
tained at a very cheap rate by those who do not
choose to go to the expense of a full-bred ram.
Let them purchase a half-blood, in which they
will have the advantage of a considerable
choice of tups, and may select such as are
best adapted to the flocks they wish to im-
prove, either one that carries a large and
long fleece, or one whose wool is short and
fine. He will cost twelve dollars and fifty cents;
the second year it will be easy to dispose of him
for the first cost, and, by doubling the price,
to purchase a three-fourths breed tup. This,
with the quarter bred lambs, will at once give
an half-bred flock at the expense of twelve dol-
lars and fifty cents; he may then select the tups
from his own flock, and sell his rams, and thus
change his flock to half-blood without one cent
expense, the fleeces of the rams overpaying
the interest of the money and the keeping.
The extension of this valuable breed of

150 Essay on Sheep.

sheep is of great importance, as it relates to the
community, the farmer, and the manufacturer,
and even to every class of society, who are more
or less affected by the cheapness and goodness
of a fabrick which all employ, as well as by
preserving a considerable capital within the
State, and affording employment to numbers of
indigent people, in whose happiness humanity
interests itself. It therefore becomes the duty
of the State to patronize and encourage them.
This has been done with a laudable zeal by our
Legislature: the premium upon the introduc-
tion of Merino rams has already had consider-
able effect ; the bounty upon cloth v/ill have a
still greater; for it will soon be apparent to the
people of every county, that the first prizes can
only be taken by cloth made from the wool of
the full-bred or mixed Merino sheep, and its
superiority will be presented to their eyes in
such form as to overcome the most inveterate
prejudices. They will see that all attempts to
make line cloth from coarse wool is lost labour,
and they will apply it to the use for which
alone it is adapted. They will change their
flocks as soon as possible, and as their wool will
become more valuable, and meet with a ready
market, they will find an advantage in increas-
ing their flocks. Good policy however would

Essay on Sheep, 151

dictate the continuance of this bounty for the
term of at least ten years, that every man who
has his flock still to change may have a pros-
pect of benefiting by the liberality of the Legis-
lature ; for within less than half that time the
competitors will be innumerable. In the mean
time the premium on cloth operates indirectly
as a bounty on wool ; for many families that raise
no wool, as the wives and daughters of mecha-
nics settled in the country, or in villages, will
find a pride and an interest in contending for
the prize, and will become purchasers of the
raw material at an advanced price: the most
skilful weavers and dressers will be carefully
sought out, and the celebrity they shall re-
spectively acquire by having their names re-
corded with the prize cloth, will excite emula-
tion among them, and afford full encourage-
ment to those whose skill and industry shall best
merit it. It may be a question how far it would
be well to give a bounty upon certain articles
made from the common wool of the country.
For my own part, I believe it unnecessary, be-
cause all wool of that kind is already worked
up in domestic manufactures, and is doubtless
employed in that way which is most useful;
if turned to a different use, perhaps neither the
public or the individual will be so well served

152 Essay on Sheep.

as they now are. But if a contrary senti-
ment should prevail, then I think the bounty
should be given upon worsteds, serges, and
blankets; because this would turn to its proper
use that long wool which is misapplied in the
making of cloth.

In Sweden the Merino sheep were intro-
duced in 1723; they at once became a national
object, and a bounty of twenty-five per cent,
was paid upon the value of the wool to the
grower, which was continued to 1781, when
it was reduced to fifteen per cent, and in 1792
it was suppressed ; Sweden then possessing up-
wards of 100,000 full-bred Merinoes, and be-
ing able to supply all her own wants without
any importation from Spain; and what is very
extraordinary, the sheep have undergone no
change for the worse in the space of upwards
of eighty years; though perhaps Sweden is of
all the cultivated countries I know, least calcu-
lated for sheep; the length of the days during
its short summer parches its barren fields, and
for seven months it is buried in snow. They
shear in July, and the average weight of a
ewe's fleece, when washed, is three pounds.
They keep up the Spanish practice of giving
salt, particularly in wet weather.

To those who are unacquainted with Spanish

Essay on Sheep, 15 3

wool it may be proper to mention the manned
in which it should be treated before they at-
tempt to convert it into yarn. First, it should
be careiully sorted; that on the neck, shoul-
der, back, and sides is the finest; that on the
rump is almost equally as fine in the full-bred
sheep, but not in the mixed breeds; the thighs
and belly, the top of the head and forelock
furnish a third sort: when sorted it should be
put in a vat and pressed down, so as not to float
when covered with water. In this state the vat
should be filled with clean soft water, mixed
with one-third of urine, and left to soak for
about twelve or fifteen hours, or longer if the
weather is cold; a cauldron is then put on the
fire with a portion of soft water, and to this is
added two-thirds of the water that covers the
fleece : when it is so hot that the hand cannot
bear it, the wool is to be taken in convenient
parcels and put in an open basket, and, after
the liquor is pressed out, conveyed to the caul-
dron, where It is washed in the basket, moving
it about gently, so as not to twist it, for the space
of two or three minutes; it is then suffered to
drain into the cauldron, so as not to carry oft' the
water; and when the whole Is washed, it must
be cleansed in running water: if the water in
the cauldron gets too foul, it must be thrown

20

154' Essay on Sheep.

away, and replenished with more of the liquor
from the vat. This mode of washing preserves
in the wool a certain portion of its grease,
which makes it spin easier. When washed it
may either be dried in the shade (the sun ren-
ders it liarsh if too hot), or, what is better, it
may be pressed in a cyder press, which dries it
much quicker; when quite dry it should be
laid upon cribbles, and beat with a bunch of
rods, which softens it, and takes out a great
proportion of the dust and hay-seeds; it is then
picked carefully, not as common wool is, but
by opening the flocks, which are in some mea-
sure tied together at the ends, and taking care
not to break the wool to pieces. To fit it for
spinning it should be greased with neatVfoot
oil, and carded with cotton cards, wool cards
being too coarse; and except the carding-mill
is particularly fitted for it, and perfectly clean
from common wool, it will run into knots, and
be spoiled if carded at it. For domestic manu-
factures, from Spanish wool, I would therefore
recommend the carding at home by hand.
In Europe it it usual, before spinning, to wash
the wool in the manner I have mentioned;
yet, from some little essays that I have made
upon the Merino wool, 1 am inclined to be-
lieve, if it is carefully picked, so as to leave no

Essay on Sheep. 155

liay-seeds on the wool, and to open it perfectly
before it is carded, that the finest thread may
be made of unwashed wool: nor do I think
that the yarn should be washed before it is
wove; the grease adds to the strength, and
renders it unnecessary to size the warp, as is
usually done; more allowance should, how-
ever, be made for shrinking. This must not
be considered as an ascertained fact, since I am
now only in the course of trial.

As I do not write for professed manufacturers,
but for farmers, many of whom have never
given much attention to the best mode of fa-
bricating cloths, I will venture to mention what,
though well known to the first, the last may
not yet be acquainted with. Common wool
can hardly be too much carded. Merino may;
the first gains by being broke to a certain de-
gree, the last is injured. In spinning, the warp
and the woof must be spun in contrary direc-
tions, because, as both open a little, and the ob-
ject of fulling is to unite the ends of the wool,
so as to raise the knap, if they untwisted the
same way, they would unite less than if they
met each other. This operation is effected by
spinning the one with an open band, that is, a
band that turns the spindle in the same direc-
tion with the wheel, the other with a cross band.

156 Essay on Sheep,

which turns the spindle in a contrary direction.
Spectacle de la Nature says it should be the
warp, because this requires to be most twisted;
the Ejicyclopcedists say the contrary, assigning
as a reason that the smoothest thread can be
made by the open band, and that it is necessary
that the warp should be particularly smooth
and even; that inequalities are of less conse-
quence in the woof, because they are corrected
in the fulling. I have not sufficient knowledge
of the subject to decide when such authorities
differ: but in either case the woof must be spun
as loose as possible. This renders the cloth soft,
and makes it easier to raise the wool for shear-
ing. To facilitate the spinning loose, a greater
quantity of oil must be used in spinning the
woof than in spinning the warp; for the first a
fourth of the weight of the wool is used, for
the last only one-eighth. This must be under-
stood as applying only to fine yarn. Coarse
thread is strong enough in itself to require but
little grease. Olive oil is preferred in Europe;
that which is most liquid must be used here.
I will not venture a farther discussion on the
subject of manufacturing cloth, since this in-
formation will be better acquired from practical
manufacturers, who are to be found in almost
every part of the State,

( 157 )

MISCELLANEOUS CHAPTER.

1 HE necessity I was under of sending the
preceding part of this little treatise to Albany
before the Legislature rose, though in an un-
finished state, prevented my adding several
matters that might properly have been digested
into the body of the work, and which I must
now either wholly omit, though they are useful
to be known, as illustrative of several assertions
which I have made therein, or throw them to-
gether in this indigested form. I have prefer-
red the latter, and only pray that this chapter
may be considered as a page from a memoran-
dum book in which no order is to be expected.
Having been so fortunate as to excite the at-
tention of my fellow citizens to the improve-
ment of their breed of sheep, and this not only
among experienced farmers, who need no in-
struction, but among a great number of those
who have not heretofore felt interested in the
subject, it is probable that, after having read
what I present for their consideration, they will
be inclined to look into the British writers.

158 Essay on Sheep*

many of whom make use of technical terms
well understood by those for whom they write,
but which will need explanation here. I there-
fore state the following definitions of those
most in use.

A male lamb, after he is weaned, is called,
during the first year, a Hog, or Hoggit^ a Tag.
An ewe lamb, during the same period, is called
an Exve Tag, a Gimmer, In the second year
the male is a Shear Hog, or a two toothed Hog,
or Tag; the female a Thaive, a Gimmer, or
tivo toothed Ewe Tag. Third and fourth year
they are distinguished by the same names, with
the addition of the number of teeth they have
changed. The fifth year, having eight broad
teeth, they are cM^A full-mouthed Sheep. The
age of the ram is generally denoted by the
number of times they have been shorn; the
first shearing being in their second year — a
sheaUng — oJie shear — tivo shear, he. In the
north of England and in Scotland an ewe lamb,
after weaning, is called a Diwmont; and in the
west of England ram lambs are called pur-
lambs. Tup and ram are synonymous terms for
a covering ram. Crone signifies an old ewe.

Gestation. — The period for gestation in sheep
IS from twenty weeks to one hundred and fifty
days: ewes will breed twice a year, and may

Essay 07i Sheep. 159

even be made to breed thrice In that time, if
they are kept in high order, and not suftered to
nurse the lambs. I have two or three that have
taken the ram this winter, since lambing, and
one within eight days after lambing, though the
lamb was running at her side. Whether the co-
pulation will be productive remains to be seen ;
if It should (and I have no reason to think it will
not), the lambs will fall In August; of course
the ewes may take the ram in October, so as to
lamb again in March, which would be three
times in the course of the year. This, how-
ever, is a practice by no means to be recom-
mended, as I think it would injure both the
ewes and the lambs, and deteriorate the stock.
Lamhs at birth, — In most breeds of sheep
single lambs are more common than a greater
number; but in some, as in the Dorsetshire,
double lambs are nearly as usual as single. The
Friesland and Tees- Water sheep, which are of
the large long-woolled species, if well kept,
bring from two to five lambs at a birth, and that
sometimes twice in a year, if we may believe an
old English writer, Barnaby Gage, who says,
" It hath been seen in Guilderland, that five ewes
^^ hath had in one year five and twenty lambs :
** It may seem, peradventure, to many incredi-
*' ble, and yet no great marvel, since they have

1 60 Essay on Sheep,

" twice a year most times two, and sometimes
" five at a time.*' Cully gives the following
instance of fecundity in a Tees- Water ewe :
When two years old she brought four lambs,
then five, then two, then five, then two; the
first nine within eleven months. The highest
keeping is however necessary to cause this fer-
tility.

Choice of rams. — I have already given direc-
tions for the choice of a ram, but as this is an
object of much moment in forming a flock, it
will be well to know the opinion of ditferent
agriculturalists. Columella recommends that
the ram be tall, with a pendant woolly belly, a
long tail, thick fleece, a broad forehead, twisted
horns (though if without horns still better), and
large testicles; not to be put to ewes till three
years old, and not after eight. — Markham.
" The ram large in every general part, with a
" long body and large belly; forehead broad,
** round, and well rising; a cheerful large eye,
" straight short nostrils, a very small muzzle,
^' by no means any horns (for the hornless are
*' the best breeders, and do not endanger the
" ewe as the horned do); a large upright neck,
'' somewhat bending, like the neck of a horse;
" a very broad back, round buttocks; a thick
*^ tail, and short jointed legs, small, clean, and

Essay on Sheep. 1$1

*^ nimble; his wool should be thick and deep,
" covering his belly all over, also his face, even
*' to his nostrils, and so downward to his knees
" and thighs/' One would conclude from this
description, that Markham, who wrote in the
reign of Elizabeth> had copied from one of the
Spanish rams imported by Edward IV. for no
sheep in England answers to his model.

Folding, — I have passed over all observations
on folding, because it is very little practised in
this State; and wherever it is> it tends to the
deterioration of the flock; and from experi-
ments accurately made by Mr. L'Hommedieu,
on Long-Island, it appears that the loss in wool,
and injury to the sheep and lambs, exceeded
the gain in manure.

Signs of health, — Signs of health in sheep are
first a skittish briskness, clear azure eye, florid
ruddy eye-strings and gums, teeth fast, breath
sweet, nose and eyes dry, respiration free and
regular, feet cool, dung substantial, wool fast
and unbroken, skin of a fine florid red, particu-
larly on the brisket. Lawrence on Cattle, p. 337.

Season of la7nbs falling, and food, — The season
for putting the tups to the ewes depends upon
the time it is wished to have the lambs fall; on
that subject I have given my sentiments. The
tups should be ^^'ell fed in the season, barley

21

i()^ Essay on Sheep.

and pease or Indian corn ground together should
not be spared. I prefer myself to make them,
or even wheat, corn, and rye, into bread, and
give him a slice three times in the day. This
is more convenient than giving loose grain, be-
cause, if your ram is as tame as he should always
be, he will receive it from the shepherd's hand,
so as not to render it necessary to take him up
to feed, which is attended with a great deal of
trouble. A little oats, or barley in troughs, or
Indian corn scattered over the clear sward, from
whence they will pick it up in single grains,
will bring the ewes in heart (if they have no
lambs) at any season that may be required. If
the flock consists of aged ewes, with moderate
care it will at least double annually. If a con-
siderable proportion are ewes that have their
first lambs, no care can prevent a loss of at least
fifteen per cent, upon those of the young ewes>
unless indeed the flock is very small. The
Merino ewes are less prolific than those of our
country, seldom producing twins.

Salt, — I have mentioned that salt was con-
sidered by the Spanish shepherds as essential to
the health of slieep, and this sentiment is very
general in every part of Europe except in Eng-
'laml, whose situation renders the air sufiiciently
*alt. The same consequence from similar causes

Essai/ on Sheep, 163

takes place here. Upon Long-Island and else-
where near the sea, the cattle requu*e no salt, nor
manifest any desire for it; whereas, on the north
of the Highlands they eat it ravenously, and it
is thought essential to their health. The anci-
ents also entertamed similar sentiments on this
subject. Aristotle prescribed one peck every
five days, during the summer, to one hundred
sheep. We should consider this as a large al-
lowance, but it would be readily eaten. They
also observe, that however good your pastures
may be, the sheep will tire of them if not
changed, unless their appetites are kept up by
salt.

I have been so often asked how much food
is necessary for a sheep, and, indeed, a solution
of the question is so important, that I think it
right to state all that I can collect upon the
subject. I have already given Daubenton's
very accurate experiments, and they may serve
as data to determine the comparative value of
grass and other green provender. Lawrence,
who appears to be an accurate and well in-
formed agriculturalist, says, that a sheep will
eat twenty pounds of turneps in twenty-four
hours, but that one gallon of potatoes will ge-
nerally suffice; from which it would follow,
that less than eight pounds of potatoes are equal

iG4? Essai/ on Sheep.

in value to twenty pounds of turneps. As the
size of the sheep are not given, we are ignorant
to what species of them to refer this assertion ;
and yet they differ very widely from each other
in their size and form, upon both of which the
quantity of food necessary for their support must
in a great measure depend. He states also the
comparative quantity of food required by a
sheep and an ox as eight or nine to one. A
course of experiments was made to determine
the relative quantity of food eaten by different
kinds of sheep. Four of the South Down
breed, whose weight is about equal to twenty
pounds a quarter, eat in seven days twenty-
nine pounds of cabbage and seventy pounds
of hay. This comes to two and a half pounds
of hay, and one pound nine-penny weight
of cabbage, which exceeds Daubenton's cal-
culation; but not more than may be accounts
ed for from the different size of the sheep.
Wiiat follows is astonishing: the same sheep eat
daily of green vetches one hundred and seven
pounds, or twenty-six pounds per diem each.
Vetches must by this be less nutricious than na-
tural grass, nearly as two and a half to one. It
is possible that clover would afford a similar re-
sult. This ouglit to be investigated. It is not
less important to know the number of Merino

Essay on Sheep, \6S

sheep that may be kept upon an acre during
the summer. It appears trom Lord Somerville's
experiments, that Ryeland ewes, crossed by
Merino rams, produced a fine stock of wethers,
which were fit for the butcher at two years old,
and weighed from fifteen to twenty pounds the
quarter, and tallowed well. He adds, that they
may be stocked hard, as the same land which
carried indifferendy forty-five long-woolled
ewes, maintained, in good plight, one hundred
and fifty Ryelands, the lambs of which were
weaned in high order. These lambs were sum-
mered on the same land, at more than twelve
per acre; and although kept hard during the
winter, the wethers fatted to sixteen pounds the
quarter. Lawrence adds, " I have been assur-
*' ed, from good authority, that 221 acres of
" pasture vetches and turneps, being the whole
'* of the land on which the sheep run last year,
'^ the profit of a flock of this breed (half blood
'^ Merinoes) amounted to £\592 9s. 2d. ster-
^* ling; but working oxen, and other horned
*' cattle ran over the same land, for which must
'^ be deducted 31 acres, so that there remain
" but 190 acres chargeable to the sheep, mak-
" ing a return of <£l 4s. sterling per acre in a
" most disadvantageous season, on account of
** the drought. In general land worth a gui-

166 Essay on Sheep.

*^ nea and a half per acre, will carry and keep
" in good store state six and a half Spanish Rye-
'* lands, from four to four and a half Spanish
" South Downs, allowing turneps, pease, and
** haum in the dead winter months. The larg-
" est breed of South Down are stocked in Sus-
*' sex, at the rate of four per acre; of full-bred
" Merinoes, an acre will carry a proportionably
greater number. They have been found very
apt to take on both flesh and fat; for two
" ewes exhibited at Bath fifty guineas were re-
** fused. One acre of good grass will keep 500
*^ couple a day. The harder you stock, the
'^ more grass, and the more sheep you may
" keep; besides that, hard stocking will render
" the coarse grass fine."

I have asserted that a cross with Merino rams
upon any stock would add at least one-third to
the value of the wool, taking quantity and qua-
lity together; I, however, presumed this from
my own experience, and from a cross I had
seen between a Merino and a long-wool led Bri-
tish sheep. I have since met with the follow-
ing confirmations of my assertions, even carry-
hw, them much farther than I have done. I
wished to confine myself to the strictest bounds,
that every man's experiments might at least ve-
rify mine, and excite that confidence in my

Essay on Sheep, 167

recommendations which I wish to inspire.
" Mr. Arbuthnot, of Bath (formerly a woollen
'* manufacturer), is fully convinced of the prac-
•* ticability of equalling Spanish wool in Eng-
** land ; he has for several years tried the Spanish
*' cross with the Wiltshire breed, nearly trebling
" the wool in quantity, and improving it ex-
** tremely in quality. The carcasses are reduc-
" ed in size, but improved in the mould, and
" the disposition to fatten increased.'* I quote
this from Lawrence, who also adds, that in
England Mr. Toilet had gone very successfully
into the bree-ding of Merinoes, getting his stock
from Lord Somerville. He mentions a tup of
his that was adjudged, at thirteen months old,
to weigh twenty pounds the quarter, for whom
he refused two hundred guineas, and one hun-
dred for his hire for a season. He then states
the effect of his crosses, in the first degree, on
South Down and Ryeland ewes, and makes the
average increased value eleven shillings and
six-pence sterling per fleece, or 150 per cent,
advance upon the wool on one cross only.

The following opinion of Mr= Toilet merits
great attention. He judges tliat an acre of land
which will keep three South Down sheep, si-
milar to our best sheep, would be sufficient to
k©ep four Merinoes. The produce in wool oi

i^S Essay on Sheep.

the South Downs would be thirteen shillings
and six-pence per acre, that of the Merinoes
£ S 15s. 6d. sterling.

The advantages of the introduction of the
Merino sheep have even been acknowledged
in the southern hemisphere. In New-South-
Wales they have been bred to great advantage,
and the wool has not degenerated. Captain
^'Arthur states, that in the year 1801 there
were 61 '20, 2l few having been originally intro-
duced from the Cape of Good-Hope, to which
place they had been transported by the Dutch •
He exhibited to the Secretary of State the fleece
of a coarse ewe, valued at nine-pence per pound,
and that of her lamb by a Merino ram, valued
at three shillings sterling.

It is unnecessary to multiply proofs on this
head ; enough has been said to convince every
unprejudiced man that his profits from sheep
may be doubled by changing his stock. If he
has the means, let him procure full-bred rams;
if he has not, let him take others of inferior
grade, of which many may now be procured :
he will by this be approximating the great ob-
ject he has in view; and let him be assured,
that even one-quarter Merino blood will greatly
improve his stock the very first year, even to
double and treble the amount of his advances :

Essay on Sheep. 15^9

besides this, it will lay the foundatioa of a good
stock to breed upon when he is enabled to pro-
cure rams of a higher grade. The mutton of
the Merino sheep is acknowledged, by a variety
of writers whom it would be useless to quote,
to be of very superior quality, and easily fatted.
Of this fact, so far as it relates to the full-bred,
I have no experience; the half-bred wethers
which I have fatted for my own table were cer-
tainly not inferior to the country breed, eidier
in size, fat, or flavour; they weighed sixteen
pounds the quarter, and tallowed well.

I have, upon a former occasion, given an
account of the British sheep. As the attention
of our farmers has been more fixed on them
than on those of any other country, it will not
be improper to offer the following short recapi-
tulation of them by the celebrated British far-
mer Cully, with some additions by Lawrence,
taken from the book of the latter.

oo

170

Essay on Sheep.

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Essay on Sheep. 171

It will also be of use to be acquainted with
the several breeds of Spain, as a direction to
those who may endeavour to import sheep from
thence ; for, though every species of the Me-
rino is valuable, yet they differ widely from
each other in beauty, in form, and in fineness
of fleece, as may be judged from the prices in
Spain, where Leon and Escureal wool sells for
100 cents, while that of Aragon brings only
^0; with several intermediate grades, which I
have given in a former communication to the
Society for Useful Arts, Those most noted are
the sheep of the Escureal, of Giiadaloiipe, Pau-
lavy of the Duke jyEiifantado, Montiirio, and
of the Negretti, The first, for fineness of wool,
is the most perfect of all the travelling flocks
of Spain; the second, for form, fineness and
abundance of the fleece; the third (Paular),
with similar fleeces, are longer bodied. The
lambs of this stock, and that of the Duke
D'Enfantado, are commonly dropped with a
thick covering, which changes into very fine
wool. The Negretti are the largest breed in
Spain. It is from the last stock that England
has drawn he Merinoes,

APPENDIX.

It would be waste of time to speak here of
the long list of maladies which attend sheep in
Europe, most of which I believe are to be at-
tributed to injudicious treatment, particularly
in folding and over-driving them. I shall con-
fine myself, therefore, to those only which I
have witnessed in this State, the number of
which is very small.

Pinning and scouring. — Lambs, soon after the
birth, are subject to a disorder called pinning.
It consists in the excrements being so glutinous
as to fix the tail to the vent, which, if neglect-
ed, will often kill the lamb. The remedy is
to wash them clean, and to rub the buttocks
and tail with dry clay, which will prevent any
further adhesion. Lambs are also subject to
scouring, or purging. This generally arises
from being kept too cold; sometimes from the
quality of the ewe's milk. They should, with
the parent ewes, be put into a warm, dry, shel-
tered cot: the ewes should have plenty of nu-

174 Essay on Sheep, — Appejidix.

tricious food given them; such as oats, old In-
dian corn, and wheat bread: care should be
taken that they nurse their lambs duly, for it
often happens that this complaint is aggravated
by a penury of milk; in this case the defici-
ency should be supplied by cow's milk boiled,
or by letting the lamb suck a cow.

Hove, — Sheep turned into clover too sud-
denly, and with empty stomachs, are some-
times inflated by the wind in that organ, the
orifice of which is stopped by the food they
have taken. This the farmer calls being hove.
All ruminating cattle are subject to it. On be-
ing affected with it, they swell very suddenly,
and, unless speedily relieved, they die. Seve-
ral remedies are prescribed for this disease; the
first and most effectual is to plunge a knife into
the paunch. The sheep will swell most on the
left side, and a part of the swelling will be very
protuberant below the hip-bone. Into this pro-
tuberance plunge a knife, sharp at the point
and dull on the edge, so as not to cut unneces-
sarily sideways. The depth must be regulated
by the degree of swelling; there is little danger
of going too deep, and the knife must enter
the stomach to be effectual. The aperture must
be kept open till all the wind is discharged,
nhich will be in a few minutes. Another re-

Essay on Sheep, — Appendix. 175

medy is to take a piece of rattan or grape-vine,
with a natural or artificial knob at the end,
covered with cloth or leather, and to thrust it
down the throat into the stomach. This will
open the aperture, and the wind will be dis-
charged. To these surgical operations chemi-
cal remedies are sometimes substituted, and
should be first tried if there is time for it; a pint
of linseed oil has been successfully given, or
a solution of potash or common ley: both of
these will combine with the carbonic acid in
the stomach, and may, of course, effect a cure
if given in suflficient quantities to absorb the
air.

Purging. — Sheep turned into pastures in the
spring are very subject to a purging, principally
from a change in diet, and laying on the w^et
ground after being turned out of their dry folds.
This is in general a malady of little conse-
quence, and perhaps is salutary upon the whole,
if not too great or too long continued. I have
never used any remedies for it; but I conceive
that folding in their winter cot, upon dry litter,
for a few nights, with a handful of hay and
grain, would check it: to this may be added
salt, mixed with any absorbent earth, which
the sheep will eat very readily. If any are so
much affected as to be weakened by it, and

17^ Essay on Sheep,— Appendix.

the disorder does not yield to those remedies,
a dose of castor oil, and housing, with dry
food, particularly a crust of wheat bread, will
generally restore them.

Scab. — The disorder which most affects our
sheep is the scab. This appears first by the
sheep rubbing themselves and pulling out
their wool. As soon as this is observed, or
when loose locks of wool appear to rise upon
their backs and shoulders, they should be ex-
amined, the wool taken out, and a little spirits
of turpentine and hog's-fat rubbed on the
place. If this be neglected for some time, and
the disorder increases, the skin will feel hot
and hard to the hand; and, if longer neglected,
the wool will pull off in large quantities, and
the scab be converted into a sore, from which
a small quantity of matter will ooze and clot
the lower part of the wool; and if altogether
left to itself, the whole fleece will drop off, and
the sheep pine away; but they will generally,
in a certain degree, recover from the first attack
when they get to grass; they will, however, be
very liable to take it again the next winter, and
then it generally proves fatal. I have never
failed to cure mine in ten days by the follow-
ing treatment. First, I separate the sheep (for
it is very infectious); I then cut off the wool

Essay on Sheep. — Appendix. 177

as far as the skin feels hard to the finger; the
scab is then washed with soap-suds, and rubbed
hard with a shoe-brush, so as to cleanse and
break the scab. I always keep for this use a
decoction of tobacco, to which I add one-
third by measure of the ley of wood ashes, as
much hog*s-lard as will be dissolved by the ley,
a small quantity of tar from the tar-bucket,
which contains grease, and about one-eight of
the whole by measure of spirits of turpentine.
This liquor is rubbed upon the part infected,
and spread to a little distance round it, in three
washings, with an interval of three days each.
I have never failed in this way to effect a cure
when the disorder was only partial. By attention
1 have always prevented its attaining so great
a degree of malignity as to sufi'er the sheep to
lose more than eight or nine inches square of
its wool; I cannot, therefore, say whether it
would cure a sheep infected so as to lose half
its fleece, in which state I have seen many
flocks. In such case I think recourse should
be had to mercurial ointment, which has been
strongly recommended by Sir Joseph Banks;
who says that it is a very safe remedy if applied
with care. He directs the wool to be opened,
and a streak to be made down the back, and

23

178 Essay on Sheep, — Appendix »

from thence down the thighs and ribs. A good
shepherd will, however, prevent its ever attain-
ing to this degree of malignity. Daubenton
recommends spirits of turpentine and hog's-
lard, or suet without any other mixture, as less
hurtful to the wool, and equally effectual. The
fine-wooUed sheep, and particularly the rams
that are exhausted by covering, are most sub-
ject to it; and in the fine-woolled flocks it is
also most difficult to cure. It spreads not merely
by contact of one sheep with another, but by
their laying upon the same ground, or rubbing
against the same post.

Staggers, Dizziness, STr. — ^This disorder I have
already described, and have detailed my success
in curing it by patience and attention. It seldom
seizes sheep of more than one year old, and is
generally considered as incurable ; though some
affect to cure it by trepanning, or by running a
sharp wire up the nostrils into the brain, so as
to discharge through the nostrils the water
which is collected there, and which is said to
be the cause of the disorder. When it is seated
near the upper part of the brain, it may be dis-
tinguished; the skull bone becoming soft im-
mediately about it, so as to yield to the pressure
of the finger. But having no other experience

Essay on Sheep, — Appendix, 179

on the subject than that which I have men-
tioned, I can say nothhig as to the efficacy of
the harsh remedies proposed.

Pelt-Rot, — This is often mistaken for the
scab, but is in fact a different and less dangerous
disease: in this the wool will fall off, and leave
the sheep nearly naked; but it is attended with
no soreness, though a white crust will cover
the skin from which the wool has dropped. It
generally arises from hard keeping and much
exposure to cold and wet, and, in fact, the ani-
mal often dies in severe weather from the cold
it suffers by the loss of its coat. The remedy
is full feeding, a warm stall, and anointing the
hard part of the skin with tar, oil, and butter.

Tick, — This insect is extremely hurtful to
sheep; it often reduces their flesh by the pain
it induces, and spoils their wool by their tang-
ling and rubbing it against trees and fences.
Lean sheep are frequently so covered by them
as to occasion their death. The remedies ap-
plied in England are solutions of arsenick or
corrosive sublimate, and decoctions of tobacco.
The first are dangerous to the operator, and
may occasion fatal accidents; the last are
hurtful to the sheep, if not carefully applied;
but all are ineffectual on thick-woollcd sheep,
because it is impossible to diffuse tlicm equally.

1 80 Essay on Sheep. — Appendix.

I have happily discovered a mode of entirely
destroying the tick, which is easy in the appli-
cation, and attended with no danger. Take a
bellows, to the nozel of which a pipe must be
affixed capable of containing a handful of to-
bacco; (the refuse from the tobacconist's will
answer); set fire to the tobacco, and while one
man holds the sheep between his knees, let an-
other open the wool, while a third blows the
smoke into the fleece; close the wool on the
smoke, and open another place a few inches
from it, and so go over the whole sheep, blow-
ing also under the belly and between the legs:
in twenty-four hours every tick will be killed.
The whole operation may be performed upon
a sheep in about two minutes.

Cold, and its consequence, — When sheep are
very ill kept, or when they lay upon damp or
wet ground in the spring and autumn, they are
subject to colds, which appear by the discharge
of mucus from the nose and eyes, and some-
times by blindness. The cure is warmth, dry
litter, and good food. It will however happen,
that some sheep have at all times this discharge
from the nose; but, upon examination, those
will generally be found to be old, and should
be fatted as soon as possible, as they disfigure
a flock, and do not pay for their keeping.

Ussay on Sheep, — Appendix, 181

Dogs, — This Is one of the severest maladies
under whicli our sheep labour; it generally
attacks a whole tlock suddenly, in which they
run from each other in every direction; then;
wool and flesh appear to be torn to pieces;
many, when the disorder is seated on ihe throat
and neck, die suddenly; others appear to be
wounded in different parts of their bodies, and
die in great torment. Sometimes the greater
part of a flock are carried off' by it in one night,
and the expense and trouble incurred for years
in raising a fine flock are instantaneously de-
stroyed; for such is the nature of this com-
plaint, that no attention on the part of the ow^-
ner can prevent it. The remedy is good whole-
some laws, steadily persisted in — firmness in the
magistracy in carrying them into effect — suflfi-
cient good sense in the people to aid in enforc-
ing them, a readiness to. respect the property
of their neighbours, and to sacrifice boyish at-
tachments to the general interest of the com-
munity.

Method of bleeding sheep, — In inflammatory
disorders bleeding may be necessary. This is
performed by cutting the ear, or the tail, or in
the temple. The first and last do not yield
much blood, and cutting the tail leaves a
considerable wound. Daubenton recommends

182 Kssai/ on Sheep, — Appendix.

bleeding in the lower part of the cheek, at the
spot where the root of the fourth tooth is plac-
ed, which is the thickest part of the cheek,
and is marked on the external surface of
the bone of the upper jaw by a tubercle suf-
ficiently prominent to be very sensible to the
finger when the skin of the cheek is touched.
This tubercle is a certain index to the angular
vein which is placed below; and this vein ex-
tends from the under border of the jaw beneath
near its angle, to below the tubercle, which is
seated at the root of the fourth cheek tooth;
farther the vein bends and extends to the cavity
of the eye-brow. The shepherd takes the
sheep between his legs; his left hand, more
advanced than his right, which he places under
the head, and grasps the under jav/ near to the
hinder extremity, in order to press the angular
vein, which passes in that place, to make it
swell; he touches the right cheek at the spot
nearly equidistant from the eye and the mouth,
and there linds the tubercle which is to guide
him, and also feels the angular vein swelled
below this tubercle; he then makes the inci-
sion from below upward, half an inch in length
below the middle of the projection which
verves to guide him.

Essay on Sheep. — Appeyidiv. 183

The following table, designating the time
that it will take to form a Merino flock from
one hundred common ewes, has been compos-
ed and transmitted to me by Simeon De Witt,
Esq. Surveyor- Generall of the State, since this
essay went to the press. It is very ingenious,
and carries with it such a strong conviction of
the practicability of changing the whole stock
of the State into Merino sheep in the course of a
very few years, that I am sure my readers will
examine it with pleasure. One reflection will
occur, to wit, that it supposes the ewes of the
first year to breed. This will happen if they
eome early and are well kept; if otherwise,
many of them will not drop lambs the first year,
and indeed many good farmers are of opinion
that they should not take the ram till they are
eighteen months old. The table furnishes the
means of calculating the stock of full-blood at
the end of eight years in either case. Mr. Dc
Witt also supposes only eighty lambs from one
hundred ewes, though in general there will be
one hundred lambs raised from that number of
ewes, if they are properly kept; the double
lambs making up for those that are lost. It
would be curious to follow it through all its ra-
mifications, and state the number of Merinoes

184 Essai/ on Sheep. — Appendix.

of different degrees of blood, that would origin-
ate in this flock from sheep sold within the
eight years, and to calculate the profits that
resulted from the change during its whole pro-
gress by the sale of the males and the increased
value of the wool.

Scheme for transmuting a flock of 100 common
Ewes and their issue into Merino Sheep,

en

?3

Com-
mon

^bld.

ibid.

|bld.

rjbd.

M

bd.||

bd-JNo-of

Ewes.

Rm. Eir

t'.rn

Ezi>

Km

Exv

Rm. Ew.

Rm.

EwIrw.

1

Eiv.

Hock.

Sold

a

B b

1

B

100

40 40

140

C c

D

d

3

CD

40 40
E e

16
F

16
f

G

§

196

3

EFGia

20 20

32
H

32
h

6

I

6
i

K k

204

4 HIK^a

40

40

19

19

2 2

215

L

1

M

m

N n

o

o

5 LMNOb^c

16

16

35

35

10 10

1

1

217

P

p|Q q

R

r

6 PQRicde

35

35 24 24

5

5

225

S

sT t

u

u

V

V

7

STUVf

22

22 38 38
|W w

14
X

14

X

2
Y

2

y

269

8

WXYhls

'

44 44

29

29

8

8

288

This scheme supposes one to commence the
establishment of a Merino flock with two Me-
rino rams and one hundred common ewes, and
that one hundred ewes will annually bring forty
ram and forty ewe lambs. The 3d, 4th, 3th,

Essay on Sheep. — Appendix. 185

6ih, 7th, and 8th columns show the number
of each grade produced in the opposite noted
in the first column, and the last column the
number of the flock, after selling those referred
to by the letters in the second column. The
ram lambs are supposed to be every year sold ;
the number given for the flock are therefore of
ewes only. After the seventh or eight year the
flock of full-blooded sheep may soon be in-
creased to any number re4ulied for a farm.
The fifteen-sixteenths, and succeeding grades^
are considered of the full-blood.

Having had occasion frequently to mention
the Clermont Merinoes, I thought it might
be satisfactory to give an account of the last
sheep-shearing, in order to show, that in all I
have said of them I have rather under than
overrated their produce. The prices set down
in the following table are those at which the
wool actually sold unwashed.

24"

IS6 Essay on Sheep.^—'Appendix

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