The Rutland daily globe. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1873-1877, 1874-05-12

State Board Of agriculture, al Yer
gennes, Feb. 8 and 4, 1874, By Col. +.
$. StoweN, of Cornw0H Wee President
of the New England 4gricmtural So
Ciety.
CONTINUED
ITO nothing" says Mr.. Hays, Secre-
tary of the National Wooden Manufactu-
rers' Association of the United States, in
an address before a convention of wooden
manufacturers and wool growers, us
France so much indebted for the beauty
and brillian.y of her wooden fabrics as to
cue perfection of her wool fibre, secured
by her skilled breeders of merinos under
the protection of a discriminating govern
ment, believing in n mutually of interest
between wool growers and wooden man
ufacturers." l am not here for the pur-
pose of promoting the interest of French
sheep in this country, meme meme teka, up
harsin has been written on the wall over
against them in time past. believe them
to have excellencies, however, aud a mod
ilcation of their characteristics by expe-
rience and skill, or perhaps a change in the
American system of keeping, may serve to
erase the verdict now against them.
What France lost by delay Germany
gained. In l764 the clector of Saxony OBJ
tanned by special negotiation a grant for
two hundred merinos to be taken out of
Spain. They were accompanied by Span
ssh shepherds to instruct the Saxons in their
care and management. A commission was
appointed to superintend and direct the
concerns of the sheep establishment, to
spread all the information they could OBJ
tain before the public, and by every means
in their power to induce the sheep owners
of the country to improve their focks, even
20 compelling the tenants of the govern
ment domain to purchase yearly few fine
bred merinos. AT first there was much
prejudice, and improvement was slow but
''when the commissioners had exercised
their functions ten years the call for young
rams was so great that they resolved to pc
titiOn the government to make another i'm
portation of ewes and rams from Spain"
Morrell says, "the invaluable properties
of pure Saxon wool, and the consequent
demand for its manufacture into fabrics,
the fineness of which the world has never
before produced, is the cause of the high
value of Saxon sheep, and their spread over
so large portion of Europe and remote
parts of the world. No other breeds are
so highly priced on the Continent, and none
which command such enormous figures.
individual rams of uncontaminated
blood often bring from $40 to $3.50; a
flock was purchased, destined for Russia,
a few years since, for which the average
price paid exceeded $500; and latterly
rams have been sold at the almost incred.
ible price of 100 TO near 800 guineas per
head. The cause of these extravagant
prices has been stated and SO long as there
exist grades in society, and the highest of
these covet a wardrobe of the finest text
are, the breed will continue to be appre-
ciated, and seduously cultivated"
1t would expand this paper too much for
me to detail the introduction of Spanish
mernos into other parts of Germany, Prus-
sa, Austria, &c Suffice it to say, that
many districts rival Saxony; Prussia es-
pecially. fosters her fiocks, not only by pre-
miums, bestowed through her agricultural
societies, but by that enlightened protec-
ton to domestic industry which so
truly characterzes that government, even
to the prohibition of manufactured goods,
imported, and the export of their raw I'M
manufactured woods, and probably in no
one thing not even in aims, h is Prussia
advanced more during the last twenty years
than in her wool and wooden interest, un-
der the workings of her prohiJitoyy tariff.
But the high positions of the wooden in
dustry of these countries has not been
reached without mistakes, trials, and strug-
giles. Fleischmann divides the history OF
merinos in Prussan Siesia into five pc
RODS. From 1885 to 1906 was the intro
ductory period, "when the wool growers
were ignorant in the knowledge of wool,
and management of merinos." From 1906
to 1915 was tho period "when the differ
ence between merino and common wool be-
gan to be understood, and the wool grow
ers travelled for information and brought
merinos from Saxony." From 1915 to 1926
was the third stage. "The great desire
was extreme ineness; they overlooked
many other valuable qualities, as size,
shape and constitution Of the animals
With the highest degree of fineness great
softness was required. The Saxon breed