The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1901-06-25
Live Stock and Dairy.
SHEEP IN THE SOUTH.

|
tions From Great Britain-The st. Louis
! Worlds Exhibition.
| Correspondence of The Progressive Farmer.
Looking backward through history
to the beginning of recorded time,
we find that keeping sheep was one
of the principal and most honorable
industrial occupations of mankind
'Abel was keeper of sheep" So
was Abraham, Job and David. The
Egyptians, the Persians and the Ro-
mans kept sheep. The lamb has
been used as an emblem of harmless
ness, meekness and purity. Keep,
ing sheep has been a prominent in
dustry of the modern nations most
notably, Spain, Germany, France
and Great Britain. When Spain was
in the height of her glory, her focks
of excellent Merino sheep were large
ly owned by the nobility and the
crown, and the industry was care
fully protected and promoted by the
government So was it in SaxOny
and in France.
It was from Spain that South
America and Mexico received the
start of their most numerals f1Ocks.
It was in 1912 and subsequent years
that the United States received i'm
ports of MerinO sheep from the noble
f1ocks of Spain, the blood of which
until more recently constituted by
far the larger part of the sheep of
the United States. Later on consid-
erable importations from Saxony,
and still later from France, were in
trOduced into American focks. These
latter were respectively known as
Saxon and French Merinos, being
originally Spanish Merinos. How
ever, some of the original Spanish
Merinos we're kept pure Dy their
breeders, and wonderfully improved,
both in form of carcass and in weight
of fleece. So marked and we'll estab-
lished was this improvement, that
in the past fifty years, in the United
States, and over the world, this
stock of sheep has been known as
the
AMERICAN MERINO.
The greatest achievement ever &C
quired in the world in an equal
length of time, as to growth of fleece
in quantity and quality, has been as
tanned with these American Merinos.
Single sheep have been authorita-
lively known to have produced over
nine pounds of fine wool, of twelve
months growth, secured clean ready
for the cards. These same f1eeces
would weigh twenty to thirty, and
even over forty pounds to the fleece,
weighed in the grease and dirt"
as it came from the sleeps back.
From small boyhoOd when he was
just able to carry lamb, about 1855,
on for thirty years thereafter, the
writer of this cared for lambs and
sheep of his fathers large flock of
sheep, mainly in Brooke county, Vir
ginia, and for his own. However,
for twenty years of that time he was
a breeder in West Virginia and Mis-
souri,, of the pure blood American
Merinos, selected and purchased by
him in 1865, from the celebrated
Hammond flock of Vermont. He
is yet in possession of diplomas
and medals from State Fairs and
from the Centennial Exposition at
Philadelphia in 1875, for superior
Merino sheep, and the same for wool
from his Merino flock, exhibited at
the Paris Exposition Universelle, in
1878. During these years he became
familiar with all sheep history with
the science of breeding and improve
ment of sheep, and with their man
agement in small focks in the East |
ern States, and with large 1ocks in
Missouri, in the grazing regions of
Texas, on the Western plains and on
the mountains, in all Of which busi-
ness, the development of his own
flock and of those under his care
were very successful in every way
with his practical management.
In all the worlds sheep history
down to the last of the nineteenth |
century there can be no brighter nor
more illustriously successful page,
written for the same length of time,
than that which shall truthf1lly de-
scribe the great development of the
American Merino, especially as a