By the 1800s, few farm families raised large flocks of sheep. Lamb was no longer a major part of the diet and families didn't have to spin wool and weave their own cloth. Instead, they bought commercially-made cloth and yarn. Sheep were sheared in the spring and the raw wool sold at market. This region of Ohio was famous for the fine quality of its wool fleece.
Merino sheep produce very fine wool.
During the mid-1800s, American farmers began to breed their Merino sheep to have skin folds or wrinkles. This increased the amount of wool they could get from each animal. As shearing became mechanized, the wrinkles were bred out to make the sheep easier to shear. While nearly all Merinos today have smooth coats, we have purposely bred the wrinkles back into our sheep at Firestone Farm to make them appear as they did nearly a 100 years ago. .