Fort Worth gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-1898, 1891-10-11

| 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 mer:nos associated with entire acclima-
ton and extreme hardness. No doubt they
could be made the very best sheep for us
under Il little judicious selection. They
would probably give Us Texas merino
equal in every respect for Texas that the
Spanish mcrino 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 merincs, or the
best american merincs,n SO called, and
the result is invariably very good, though
it need not be rubbed out that the cross cuts
of much of the peculiar hardness OF tho
native. A cross on our natives with other
fine breeds than merinos is not apt to prove
permanently advantageous, as there is too
rch in ha r,s.n nrit iac
of the animals. There will be inaugurated
IN the cross a 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 viii never cease to supply most
Americans with their corn and hay-fed NUT
ton. The assertion that first-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 tine grain
of the mutton. The heavy, loose wooded
cotswold and shropshire produce mutton,
rs Lord Summerville says, ''ft 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 butch@ed, yields chop, boil or
roast second only to southdown, if, n
deed, it is at all inferior. The superiority
of the southdown, if it has any, consists
less in 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 a very old one, but it is
erroneous. The flesh of the sheep partakes
of the favor 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-
fecting the flesh.
The disagreeable '!sheepy'' flavor is i'm
parted to meat by age, by bad feeding (or
no feeding at alD and by delay in the re-
moval of the viscera. Let 4 sheep be prop
eriy managed from birth to butchering and
the entraiis be taken out with neatness and
dispatch, and the carcass may be wrapped
in the skin without detriment, barring the
uncleanliness From the enormous pre-
ponderance of the breed, the much decried
''merino ia te' is the scapegoat for all the
bad feeding and worse butchering of the
country. 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 a 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. 1t is not in the size
that the trouble lies. so much as in the
quality, and the quality is not so much due to
breed as 10 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 Drown" 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 will 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 |
OVID native sheep by judicious selection and |
frst-class sheep treatment, then the next |