St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1890-04-03
MERINO SHEEP IN AMERICA.

In the April number of Harper
Monthly, Mr.. Barker writes very IN
terestingly of the development OF the
merino sheep in this country. He
says: The story of the development
In Spain of the cultivated "merlno'
sheep is an interesting one, but can
not be told here. America did not
obtain these fine sheep until this CEN
fury. Our so-called native" sheep
were brought over by the early col
onists, the first to Jamestown in
1909, in allf1ocks of unknown but
coarse breeds. In Massachusetts
they throve particularly well, and i'll
1915 that colony passed laws to en-
courage sheep raising. In 1875 the
society for the promotion of agricul-
ture in South Carolina offered a
medal for the first flock of "merinos"
kept in the state. 1t was not till
1893, however, that Hon. William
Foster of Massachusetts, Struggled
three fine merinOs, valued at $500,
from Spain to a friend i'll Boston
only to be thanked for the delicious
mutton he had sent homel About
1901 the ram Dom Pedro" was inn
ported to farm on the Hudson riv-
er, and a pair of Spanish merlnOs
were obtained also by Mr.. Seth
Adams OF Dorchester, Massachusetts,
afterward of Dresden, Ohio. In 1902
Colonel Humphrey, United States
Minister to Spain, sent to his farm in
Derby, Connecticut, a considerable
flock, and from the wool of this stock
President MadisOns inauguration
coat was made in 1909. The full
blood" wool brought as much as So
a pound, and pairs of these merinos
were sold at $4,000 A merino craze
was the consequence; in 1S1O-11 JOG
cargoes, aggregating 1867 sheep,
mostly Spanish, arrived in the United
States, largely the purchase of Will
lam Jarvis of Vermont, consul at Lis
bon, from fine f1ocks cOnfiscated and
sold by the Spanish Junta. During
the embargo of the war of 1912 full
blood" wool reached So so pound
but, in the collapse which followed
pure sheep sold as low as a dollar a
head, and many of the best focks
were dispersed. One Stephen At
wood of Ohio, buying from the
Humphrey flock i'll 1913, bred care
fully for half q century, with such
success that in 1853 one of his rams
yielded a fleece of 80 pounds. In
1919 Edwin Hammond of Vermont,
who, like Whitney with his cotton
gin, has added untold millions to the
wealth of his country, bought an At
wood ram, the famous 'Old Black,
and from the Hammond flock the So
called "American merinO" was devel-
Oped, foot shorter in the neck and
six inches in the foreleg, yet weigh
ing % pounds more than its Spanish
progenitors of half a century back
In 1926 a mania for Saxony me
rinos swept over the country, but
our stock is still chiefly of Spanish
descent, there being probably a mil
lion pure American merinos of that
blood. One American merino"
fleece on record showed 36.6 per cent
of the weight of the animal; and the
ram "Buckeye," shorn at the estate
shearing' in Michigan, in 1884, pro-
duced a fleece of IL pounds. These
enormous feeces, however, are apt
to be so full of "yolk," or natural oil,
that some have been known to leave
less than quarter of their weight in
secured wool; whereas it is common
ly reckoned that unwashed fleeces
should yield One-third and washed
heeces about One-half, of their weight
in secured wool.