Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1863-09-17

pure blooded, The old blood of Leon
flowed uncontaminated in their veins.
All honor to old Stephen Atwood for this,
All honor to him too as an improver
What tho accomplished Humphreys and
the talented and stately Livingston failed
to do for their imported sheep, this dried
up old Connecticut farmer, as destitute of
accomplishments and talents as one of his
native Connecticut hean-stalks, succeeded
in doing, Before he got to the length of
his rope IN his improvements, he doubled
the intrinsic value of one of the prime
Cabanas of Spain,
But the Improved lnfantado Of Vermont
has more than doubled again in value,
commencing where MIR, Atwood left
of.
Formerly | had had much to do with
your Vermont sheep. | commenced as a
sheep owner pretty young, My motheris
not quite sure whether | was one or two
months old when first became flock
master, and | have been one every day
since, or in other words, for 50 years. |
have been a breeder of pure Spanish
Merinos about so wears. Some Is or 20
years ago | commenced buying sheep from
Vermont and have owned hundreds If
not thousands of them. But, gentlemen,
when You We're keeping step to the music
of progress, | wandered from the waysde;
where the calls ofpohtics We're heard when
the cares and duties of official life wear
on the spirit and bring back only Dead
Sea apples--tair outside, filled with ashes.
Moreover, spilled too much ink to find
time to hold lanterns for my sheep to eat
by So when came back among the
Green Mountains in the winter of 1861
81, after an absence of maay years, |
was disappointed in all saw thorough
ly disappointed but the disappointment
was most favorable one. 1t seemed to
me that you had strobe forward century
in 20 years.
My first loves-the Paulars-had be-
come a model of compactness and beauty.
The round rib, the short leg, the short
thick head, remained the fleece was far
evener and finer than it used to be.
The lnfantados too had undergone a
remarkable change The fiat rib had
given place to the round one, the rather
attenuated form had become a thoroughly
compact one, the size and bone had in
creased so per cent, the wool was greatly
longer than it used to be, and vastly bet
ter covered the belly, head and l. gs of the
sheep the fleece was thicker and nearly
doubld in weight Nor was this extra
weight produced by yolk, or as | have
termed it in my preceding remarks. grease.
Indeed, the improved Infantados have lost
the prominence enjoyed by the old Infan-
tados, in this particular; They are
not now yollIier than the improved Paul
lars
Their breeders found that the greatest
weig t of fleece, combining yok and wool,
was not compatible with the greatest
amount of yolk or seasse. Those sheep
which We're so muchM rage 10 Or Is
years ago, which looked as If they had
been soaked fortnight IN an oil vat and
then taken out and touched over with tar
Cor Cornwall tinish,) have already gone
out of date. Their grease and wool do
not weigh so much as the wool and grease
of really long thick wooded animals. which
these never are, which have so per cent.
less grease. have in my minds eve at
this moment several animals which stand
almost unexampled in the proportion of
wool to meat. Some of them, grown ami
mails and IN good condition, give pound
of wool for every 5 pounds of carcass
One rises to the remarkable proportion of
Il per cent. of the weight of carcass in
wool. Yet not one of these animals have
the wet, soppy, soaked look of the sheep
| am talkirg about | think that neither
of them has an iota of external gain ex-
cept underneath. These sheep too have
constitution. The soaked sheep never
have it. They are tender and curl up at
every gale.
| have freely named some of the leading
improvers of the Paulars. Shall | shrink
from doing the me in regard to the In
fantados Shall regard the delicacy of
a gentleman present more than | regard
justice and truth Sheep breeders of
Vermont had not been an hour among
the improved Intantados. in my visit here
in 1872, before | found traces that set
me wondering, and like the African hunt
er, knew by the size of the spoor that it
was the track of lion. Gentlemen, the
Infantados of Vermont have had many
excellent breeders. | could name at least
a score of them Of whom you may justly
be proud but you have one transcendant
breeder I had not, as | remarked, been
an hour among his class Of sheep, when |
said of. this man, then to me a stranger,
"here is the Merino Blackwell aye, a
greater than Blackwell" | then said and
believed, and | now say and believe, and |
am willing to stake what little reputation
I possess as a Judge of sheep, on that
statement-that the world has never, in
Spain, France, Germany or America, found
any man who has done so much to i'm
prove Merino sheep as the one now speak
of. Need | name him ? Does not every
man in this assembly know without being
told, on what brows such wreath as this
must rest No | will not name him. But
when he goes down to the grave, his ma
tive state will name him to all future gen
erations, as the foremost of her great i'm
provers. ...
The future course of breeding in this
y I 14P