San Marcos free press. [volume] (San Marcos, Tex.) 1877-1892, 1883-02-08
Sheep Raising In the South.
For the South

large sheen farm near San Antonio
Texas. He says they are direct DIES
cendants of Il flock presented by The
King of Spain to Louis XVI, O.
France in l7SG. The flock has al
ways been kept isolated, and the
sheep are said to be pure blooded
while those of the Spanish strain are
not SO new. NJ. Cert estimates his
sheep at $3.50 a head, and intends &c
cross them with a good Texan flock
He has found by experiment that the
quality and weight of the fleece OF
the crossbred sheep are thus wonder
fully increased.
SOME ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE SHEEP.
1t is related that the Romans cult,
waited with special care breed Of
sheep called Tarentine, from Taren,
tum, a city of Greek origin, situated
at the head of the Tarentine Gulf
The fleece of these sheep was OF ex-
ceeding fneness and great delicacy'
and the animals were clothed in the
winter to protect them from cold. M.
Cert also has silk cloaks for his
sheep.) The Tarentine sheep were a
product of Greek civilization, trans
mitted down to the Romans. Calu-
mella, the great Roman agricultural
lists, says that his uncle, residing in
Spain. crossed some of the fine Tar
entine sheep with some that had been
imported from Africa, and the conse-
quence was that these sheep had the
whiteness of fleece of the father with
fneness of fleece of the mother, and
the race was perpetuated. Here we
see an improvement in the stock, and
an increase of the strength and pro
ductiveness given to the fine wool
sheep of Spain. At that time the
sheep of Spain were of great value.
Strabo says that in the time of Tibe,
RUS, sheep from Spain were carried
to Rome and sold for thousand dol
lars head. When the barbarians in
vaded Italy, these fine wool sheep
were all swept away, but they re.
manned in Spain and were cultivated
by the Moors in the almost inaccessl-
blemountains. They continued to be
nourished there and were known as
Spanish Merinos, and have come
down to us from the Greek and Ro-
man civilization.
THE MERINo IN AMERICA.
The American Merino sheep is SUI
perior to any other breed in woolgrow-
ing qualities. In regard to this sheep,
John S. Hays, Esq, says: "The
Merino constitute the principal and
characteristic race in the United
States. This is the most important
fact in the enumeration of our re-
sources of sheep husbandry and wool
England has no Me-
rinos, except in her colonies; Russia,
with 65,O00,00O sheep, has but 49,
100000 Merinos; France but 9,OOO,-
900. Although the number in this
country cannot be exactly given, the
Merinos and grades in the United
States probably exceed $4,000, 900.
Merino wool is for clothing what
wheat is for food. tbs the chief materi-
al for cloth at the present day, enter
ing into the coarsest as well as the
finest. While the softest, it is the
strongest of all wool fbres, from the
of filaments which may be
spun in a yarn of a given diameter.
From it's fulling and spinning quail
ties, or what is sometimes called it's
carrying power, it is the best adhe-
sive for cheaper fabrics-coarse wool,
cotton or shoddy-the mixture of the
Merino wool increasing indefinitely
the materials for cheap clothing.
Abundant Merino wool is the greatest
boon the world has received from the
animal kingdom in the last century.
1t is literally, in its extended culture,
the product of the last century. A
hundred years ago all the Merinos in
the world, confined exclusively to
Spain, did not, it is believed, number
1 million. The first introduction of
5he Merino sheep into this country
vas in 1902" The fibres of fine
wool on the skin of the pure Merino
sheep number 10000 to the square
nch, and it is said that on the re-
note cross of the pure blood Merino,
lie number of fibres is not greatly di-
ninished.
SOME FIGURES AND FACTS.
The number of sheep in the world |
5OO,O00,O00; nearly |
enough to encirle the earth thirteen |
lines if they were ranged in single .
lie, closely following each other, and I
would make 32O,S33 miles of sheep. I
Of these the United States has 4