Fort Worth gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-1898, 1891-10-15
j. p. STEELE, EDITOR.

tional, extravagant and necessarily sui
cidal industry. Only one man in thousand
can afford to eat spring lamb. The vast
majority Of mankind who eat mutton at all
must be content with mature flesh; and for
nearly half the year mutton cannot be made
more profitable in the large way (body and
fleece taken together) from English breeds
than from merinos.
1t has been pretty well settled by scien-
tific Investigators that our native sheep of
Texas Tor ''scrub Sheep as some call
| them) have descended from the Spanish
merinos introduced by the conquerors of
| Mexico at very early day. On this ac-
count they are fairly good breed of Sheep
for they exhibit many of the qualities of
| the merinos associated with entire acclima-
ton and extreme hardness No doubt they
could be made the very best sheep for US
under little judicious selection. They
would probably give US a Texas merino
equal in every respect for Texas that the
Spanish merino is for Spain; but, of course,
considerable time would be required for
completely accomplishing this work. Much
time may be gained by crossing our Texas
natives with the imported merinos. or the
best American mernos,'' SO called, and
the result is invariably very good, though
| it need not be rubbed out that the cross cuts
off much of the peculiar hardness of the
native. A cross on our natives with other
fine breeds than merinos is not apt to prove
| permanently advantageous, as there is too
much difference in the natural peculiarities
| of the animals. There will be inaugurated
IN the cross battle of the breeds, which
will end in an determination of one side or
| the other, to the serious deterioration of the
| conquering strain. Doubtless the best
| Texas sheep at some day not far in the fut-
| ure will be a result of selection from our
own natives, followed by good treatment,
without any kind of cross whatever.
Mr.. Powers goes on to state that we may
want the English breeds near our cities to
furnish spring lambs and long, combing
wool, and ROOTED or CRASHED mutton; but
| the merino will never cease to supply most
| Americans with their corn and hay-fed NUT
! ton. The assertion that frst-class chops and
roasts cannot be cut from any but an En-
| glish carcass is old and worn out, and, more
| ever, wholly unwarranted. There is only
one genuine mutton sheep worth consider
| ing, and that is The southdown, whose wool
| is comparatively fine. The coarser the
| fiber of the the fleece. the coarser the grain
| of the mutton. The heavy, loosewooled
cotswold and shropshire produce mutton,
as Lord Sunmerville says, '!it for such
markets as supply shipping and collieries"
-ham-fat and thick on the rib.
The American merino, with its fine
| grained flesh, when it has been properly
| fed and butchered, yields cnop, boil or
| roast second only to southdown, if, u
! deed, it is at all inferior. The superiority
of the southdown, if it has any, consists
| less i'll the sweetness and tenderness of the
| flesh than in the thickness of the hams and
| the ''marbling'' Of the distribution of fat
among the lean.
| The idea, says Mr.. Powers, that the wool
| gives taste to the flesh, either by its growth
! before butchering, or by its touch in butch
! erlng, or after, is very old one, but it is
| erroneous. The flesh of the sheep partakes
of the flavor of its feed more than does that
| of the steer or the hog. But all the appa-
| ratus of glands and tissues for the manu-
| facture of wool is situated in the skin, and
| all its deposits are made there without af-
| fectins the flesh.
The disagreeable Sleepy favor is i'm
| parted to meat by age, by bad feeding Tor
| no feeding at alb and by delay in the re-
| moval OF the viscera. Let sheep be prop
| erly managed from birth to butchering and
the entrails be taken out with neatness and
| dispatch and the carcass may be wrapped
| in tie skin without detriment,. barring the
! uncleanlineSs. From the enormous pre-
| pouderance of the breed, the much decried
''merino ia tie" is the scapegoat for all the
| bad feeding and worse butchering of the
country. a sheep may yield the best
| flesh of all the domesticated animals or
| fowls-or the worst.
| A cry comes up from the sheepmen of
| Texas that they must have larger carcass
more mutton and more wool on fewer
| legs" These men, continues Mr.. Powers,
do not correctly see what is wrong with the
merinos, or with the native Southwestern
sheep, for that matter. II is not in the size
that the trouble lies, SO much as in the
IAiiltS dhu LAAS iudiIty HUGH Uut 10
breed as to management. You often hear that
the sheep of Texas "kill red as the butchers
say. Then the cook says they cook red
they will not properly brown in the oven
This may be So and is so, we suppose. They
may be the very despair of the French
Chef but it is not the fault of the sheep
The sheep that must rustic for his entire
living is necessarily coarse and muscular
He is gamey, and never fat enough for the
best eating, even when rustling on the best
bunch grass of the Staked Plains, or the best
CANA grass of other sections of the state
If he had an abundance of these grasses the
year round he would be better than he is,
but when he is forcee to sustain himself
through considerable periods on black sage
and cactus he naturally loses much gained
on bunch and CANA grass. Give the Texas
sheep good sheep treatment through few \
generations and there viii no longer remain
an excuse for complaining about red cooking
and gamey mutton.
If. in these days of craze for introducing
something from abroad, the Texan cannot
get the consent of his mind to improve his
own native sheep by iudicious selection and
frst-class sheep treatment, then the next
best all-round sheep for him will be found,