Kansas City journal. [volume] (Kansas City, Mo.) 1897-1928, 1899-01-08
SHEEP OF BLUEST BLOOD
MERINOSS OF LONG PEDIGREES IN
THE HILLS OF VERMONT.
They Are Ugly And Dirty. Wear Silver
Earrings and Have Commanded
$4,000 Apiece-HOw They
Came From Spain.

From the New York Sun.
The bluest biooded, most aristocratic of
all domestic animals in the United States
is the merino sheep said Aaron Spencer,
a New England stock breeder. land no.
where else in the world, not even among
the hills of S~pain-the original home of the
merinoAis this valuable animal found in
such perfection and purity of breeding as
among the Green mountains of
There are merinos in that region, and par
ticularly in Addison county, whose pedi-
gree is traced back without a break in
the record or a blot in the blood for more
than a century, directly to ancestral past
ures in Spain.
ITO look at a merino sheep, unless you
know all the points of one. you would
scarcely think it was worth driving to
pasture. Greasy. dirty and uncouth, its
fleece, blackened by an oozy, gunlnay SUBJ
stance which, to put 1t mild. Is ny no
means fragrant. hanging to its BODY in
rhinoceros-like folds and wrinkles, the eyes
barely visible. and nothing but the nose
showing from the greasy. sticky, 1ll-Smell-
ing mass. the royal-blooded merino T. not
a sight to cause much enthusiasm in Il
spectator who is looking for outward beau
ty. Blu the blacker and gummier and more
rhinoceros,like its fleece the better 1t Is.
Breeders think so much of that dirty gum
| on their merinos that they carefully shelter
| them from showers. and even heavy dews,
t to preYent M e pbe1ie'e Of Of It this from ar asaos attic
family of sheep of the ermon bree! have
| taken on this unprepossessing and uncouth
gree that they have easily, commanded
| 1000 apiece from eager breeders L knew
| an addison county flock Of merinos. thirty
in number. to be sold. Just as they stool
in the pasture, for $4,000 cash.
Spanish Sheep.
sFor centuries the government Of Spain
prohibited, under heavy penalties. the eX-
portation of merino sheep, knowing well
the great value of that product of its noun
tain slopes. and being resolved not to share
1t with any other country. In 1902. Colonel
David Humphrey of Connecticut. was
| United States minister to Spain. and he
made himself so popular at the court IN
Madrid that when he retired from office.
in that year. his request to be permitted
to fetch with him to America a number OF
merinos of known superiority of blood was
granted by the Spanish government. Those
sheep were placed on the Humphrey farm,
near Derby, and from that original stock
the present royal breed of Vermont me-
rinoS sprang.
But there is an aristocracy even among
blue-blooded merinos.. and the family
known as the Atwoods may be said to
be the Mayfiower stock of all merinos IN
this country and the highest in degree in
any country except Spain. They hold their
heads above the most aristocratic of their
kind, not because their blood is any better
than other Vermont merinos. but simply
because they are Atwoods and nothing else.
Two or three years after Colonel Hum
phrey brought that first flock of merinos
from their native hills in Spain. a young
farmer named Stephen Atwood agreed to
work a whole year on the Humphrey farm
for just one eve from the original impor-
tation of merinos. The contract was full
filled. and from that eve and a Humphrey
merino ram the present Atwood merinos
originated. Atwood transferred his sheep
to Addison county and there the purity of
the blood has been sacredly preserved, an
association of breeders having been formed
for no other purpose than to maintain that
, purity. Descendants of Stephen Atwood
controlled the flock until a few years ago.
when it passed into other hands. A half
interest in one of the rams brought $500.
The flock was separated. but the Atwoods
remain the merinos of highest degree.
When a lamb of this ultra blue blood is
born, its ears are pierced and silver labels.
one with a number on 1t, and the other
with the owners name, are attached to
on the books of the association. If the
lamb is sold or transferred. the owner must
notify the association. and the transaction
is carefully noted on the books. Any SUBJ
sequent disposition of the lamb must also
be reported to the association. SO that every
movement of that lamb from it's birth
to its death is always known. No sheep
has any standing as a royal-blooded me-
rino which does not wear the earrings,
and can have no certificate of pedigree.
To-day merinO sheep are raised all over
the world. Australian breeders being the
largest owners: but even from Australia.
that garden spot of sheep raising. as well
as from every other sheep-growing coun-
try, the breeders come to Addison county
Vt. to obtain scions of the original stock
whenever they want to improve their