Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: established them on a farm near Paris, called Rambouillet, progenitors of the breed of that name. Musimon Of Europe. Courtesy American Sheep Breeder. During the first quarter of the nineteenth century Merinos were introduced into the United States. In 1801, the wool industry, that has made that state the leader of fine-wool sheep, was started in Ohio. The same year a number of Ram- bouillets were sent to New York by Robert Livingstone, our minister to France. In 1802, General Meui.no, lyi'B A—Champion Ewe. PLATE I. ' Meri1so, Type B—Champion Ram. Humphries, our minister to Spain, sent to his native state, Connecticut, nearly one hundred head of pure-bred Merinos. In 1809, William Jarvis, our minister to Portugal, sent four thousand purebred Merinos to Vermont. The next two years, it is estimated, nearly twenty thousand sheep were brought to this country and the industry thus started on foundation stock of the best blood. Due to the low altitude and moist climate of England, the Merino breeds have never done well Afhic-an Sheep. Courtesy American Sliecp Breeder. in that island, and, as a result, the attention of breeders, particularly of Robert Bakewell, was early given to improving the mutton qualities of their sheep. All of our breeds of medium and long-wool sheep, chiefly of the mutton types, have originated from strains long bred in England for their mutton producing qualities. In all countries of the world the sheep industryhas flourished and has produced untold wealth for the owners. While it is a far cry from the times of Abel and Abraham, and the shepherds with their little flocks on the Chaldean hills in Biblical story, to the present day of gigantic sheep ranches of Australia, Argentine and the United States, the habits of this docile a...