they see it, have the means and are willing to pay for it. Wellborn, well grown and well ripened mutton from Pennsylvania farms when it is available in the market will command a premium over the western stuff, and justly so. There is another very attractive branch of the sheep industry that cannot be undertaken by the western man; partly because of his distance from the market; that is the business of supplying winter or hot-house lambs for the trade of large cities like New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore. These lambs born in the winter time consume little feed but much loving care and attention. Going to market they bring enormous prices in comparison with other meat products, and will repay the shepherd who has the skill to bring them forward in perfection.

It is with a sincere desire to help restore profitable sheep to Pennsylvania farms, that the writer has undertaken in this Bulletin to give the results of his own studies, observations and experiences. He can conceive of nothing more desirable than that many farms in every county of Pennsylvania should be devoted to sheep, and knows of no one thing that would bring greater blessing to the country; the gentle flocks bringing with them their own atmosphere of peacefulness and quiet, restoring the fertility of the soil, covering wide valleys and sloping hillsides again with luxuriant grasses and clovers re-building the fertility of the soil, restoring decaying homesteads and making firmer the foundations of even the prosperous ones. They would bring with them also a change in the inner life of the men themselves. With sheep and shepherding come stability of character and peace and content and willingness to abide upon the land; because they bring with them assurance of food and raiment for all, and profit to their fortunate owner. But yet it would be the least of the writer's desires to bring sheep into Pennsylvania before the owners thereof had prepared the way, by getting first into their heads some vital elementary truths concerning sheep, their requirements and necessities. Easy it is to keep sheep healthy and profitable as to keep a sweetheart or wife in love with you, and dependent upon much the same principle; the doing of little things, the right things at the right time and the right place. It requires no tremendous effort to keep a flock in good health and thrift, but it does require eternal vigilance, and more than in any other business it is the master's eye that prospers the flock. In England there is a class of professional shepherds whose fathers and grandfathers before them were shepherds upon the very land where they now dwell. These men through habit and inheritance know all the whims and mysteries of sheep life. They do not always know the reason for things, but they can tell you the results of practices good or bad. It is due to this watchful and loving care of these shepherds more than to any natural conditions that sheep thrive so well in England. A similar class of trained shepherds does not exist in America, and this fact alone is the greatest barrier to an immediate introduction of similar practices in America. It seems to be true here that the owner himself must be a shepherd. He may have his assistants, who will do the work under his direction, but success in its highest estate will come to him in proportion as he gives his personal attention to the flock, studies their needs, scents from afar the peculiar dangers to which they are subject, and believes in that good old principle that "A stitch in time saves nine."

The writer would particularly suggest to young men, or young women for that matter, the desirability of their taking up this work. It is difficult for an old man to change his practices, or to learn new ways. It is almost impossible for a man who has grown up caring for sheep in the careless and let-alone manner prevalent a century ago, to unlearn what he knows, and learn over again the whole business. There is a fascination and delight about the business when one takes it up when he is young. And while young heads and young hands may make many mistakes, yet young enthusiasm, young courage and brave young hearts will persevere and finally win out in the end despite the lack of experience at the beginning.

HISTORY.

No one knows the exact place from which came the wild sheep, progenitors of our modern breeds. There does not exist in all the world anything very closely allied to the sheep, yet there are several wild forms either of which may possibly have been the original. All of these inhabit mountainous and rocky regions. All are timid animals, feeding by night and keeping well out of sight of man. The nature of the domestic sheep shows it to have been descended from a mountain climbing animal, since its feet grow rapidly as would be necessary where they were subject to much wear upon a rocky soil. Sheep love the hills and love to climb. They choose the highest spots on which to sleep, a reversion to their primal instincts which led them to seek always the pinnacles from which they could witness the approach of any enemy. In a state of nature, therefore, sheep roamed wide, browsing among nutritious herbs and shrubs, eating grass and finding little, if any, grain. It is well to bear these facts in mind, as they are an indication of how best to treat the sheep in domestication to keep it in health and vigor. Doubtless the first sheep coming to America were of English origin, and although they are frequently spoken of as being "scrubs," yet it is really most improbable that anything deserving this term should have been brought across the water. "Scrubs" have not existed in England for many generations. Naturally the best would have been chosen for exportation. Sailing from the south of England from Bristol, or Plymouth, ships would naturally take on board sheep of the whitefaced, long-wooled breeds there common, possibly of the Cotswold type or something like the Devon long wools might have been se lected. In the mountains of Virginia and parts of Kentucky are found to-day some flocks of large white-faced sheep with horns, leggy and lank. They are not by any means beautiful, but esteemed as being great mothers and milkers, and when crossed with good sires make excellent mothers for spring lambs. These white-faced sheep, it seems to the writer, must be descendants of some old Dorset Horn or Somerset Horn sheep which may have come to Virginia in the early settlement of the country, and finding the mountains congenial homes have bred there ever since. Whatever the state of the English breeds may have been when they first reached our shores, doubtless neglect, scarcity of food and exposure to severe weather caused considerable deterioration. Indeed, the sheep is one of the most pliant of all creatures. It responds with wonderful quickness

to good care, and by selection, good qualities are readily fixed for a time; then if neglect follows, as rapid a deterioration sets in, and this fact should ever be borne in mind by the ambitious shepherd.

Merinos came to America much later than the English breeds, coming to us from Spain. Not until the beginning of the last century was any serious attempt made to establish Merino flocks in America. In 1809 and 1810 William Jarvis, of Vermont, imported 3,850 Merinos, of which 1,500 came to New York, 1,000 to Boston and the remainder to Philadelphia, Baltimore, Alexandria, Norfolk, etc. Soon after the introduction of Merinos, they caused the so-called "native sheep" or English breeds to suffer great neglect, principally because there was not yet any great demand for mutton, and wool commanded a high price. Throughout all the Eastern states, Merinos were in great repute, extending finally to the Middle West, and at last in comparatively recent years, to Texas, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, California and all the great range states. Before the Merino came there was comparatively little real sheep farming practiced anywhere, and the advent of the Merino instead of developing an industry such as we need to-day, rather proved a hindrance, since the Merino, accustomed for centuries to sparse and frugal living, can exist under conditions not at all suitable for the English mutton breeds. The wide pasture covered with natural grass and set with thickets of hazel and other brush was often the home of the Merino flock winter and summer; in severe weather it is true, some artificial feeding might be given, perhaps corn stover drawn out upon the snow, or possibly unhusked corn. A straw stack was commonly provided and these patient little Merinos ate of it during the winter and scorned it not. If the sheep became thin in flesh during the winter, such was their wonderful vitality that they would pull through until green grass came, with very little help aside from what was provided in the grass, the brush, and browsing. Lambing under this old system of management was not usual until late in April or May, and coming after green grass was strong, the ewes had recovered sufficiently from their emaciation so that they were able to suckle their offspring fairly well, although it was not usually expected that an increase of 100 per cent. would be had. In the region of the writer's own home the owners of Merino flocks made small pretense of selling any mutton, in fact there was in his village a large establishment where great numbers of sheep were slaughtered in the fall, their pelts taken off and the carcasses boiled down to extract their tallow, after which the flesh was buried.

BREEDS.

THE MERINOS.

Undoubtedly one of the oldest races of sheep is the Merino, and most of all has this breed felt the influence of the hand of man, for farthest does this breed diverge from any possible wild type. In the Merino the result of centuries of selection has been a sheep with a fleece of extreme fineness and density, often accompanied with a great deal of oil or "yolk." It is evident that Merino

breeders have always, in selecting, considered excellencies of fleece, and have thus neglected to a great extent the building up of good form, in fact it is hardly conceivable that any wild breed should have had so poor and weak a form as many Merinos possess to-day.

Merinos came to us from Spain, though many importations of the larger types of Rambouillet and Delaine Merinos came from Spain by the way of France or Germany where they have been bred for many years, and it is most interesting to note how the different ideals of these people have resulted in widely divergent types. The French and German breeders finding mutton profitable, and having naturally an ideal tending toward the rugged and substantial, have evolved a much larger sheep than ever did the Spaniards, and for some purposes, a much more useful sheep for America. Merino wool is the finest produced in the world, and often commands the highest price. Breeders of sheep, however, in Pennsylvania must bear in mind that in production of wool they are competitors of the great ranges of the West, of the savage lands of Argentina and Patagonia and even far off Terra del Fuego, and have to compete with the whole continent of Australia, so that it is probable that the present high level of values for Merino wool are but temporary, although doubtless with the increase of mankind upon the earth, and the greater spread of luxury together with the steady shrinkage of wild ranges, there will be a steady appreciation in the general values of all wool.

The history of Merino breeding in the past is a fascinating one, and filled with valuable lessons that may be drawn from the mistakes of many early breeders. Fashion ruled with Merinos. At one time it was considered the right thing to strive for the largest possible fleece on the smallest permissible body. The result of this seemed at first to bring the greatest profit, for the breeders argued that all the feed consumed went to produce wool, forgetting that they were by this system undermining the constitution and vigor of their sheep, until finally their families of Merinos were so delicate that it was only by the kindest care and best nursing, that flocks were kept in existence at all. Again, other breeders steering a little way from this rock, conceived the idea that oil or "yolk" in the wool added greatly to the weight thereof, and the aim was to breed the sheep having the most oil in its wool. Now oil when in excess is a waste product of no value to the manufacturer, and only a burden to the unfortunate sheep that must carry it. And excessive oil, moreover, makes the sheep unable to withstand excessive cold, so that on the ranges it has been found that "greasy" sheep will freeze to death in cold winters. A manufacturer once told the writer of buying a fleece from a celebrated ram, which weighed 45 pounds unscoured. There may have been 18 or 20 months growth of this wool, but when scoured it yielded less than 12 pounds of scoured wool. Thus the farmer had wasted, and worse than wasted, feed enough to make 30 pounds of oil that he vainly hoped to sell at a high price to the manufacturer. Manufacturers, however, are not children, and perceiving that the scoured basis was the only one available to them, they learned to bid less and less for the heavy wool, so that the farmer probably profited nothing at all, excepting that possibly his brother farmer, so honest as to breed normal sheep,

may have taken a little less for his product than what it was worth, seeing that buyers often pay an "average price" throughout a neighborhood.

It would seem that we are wiser than our fathers, and that fads in Merino breeding have now mostly disappeared, since most breeders of Merino sheep to-day are seeking to produce a large, smooth sheep approaching as near as may be to the ideal brought forward by the breeders of purely "mutton sheep." There are not to-day so many folds or wrinkles as there formerly were, there is not quite the great percentage of wool that was then secured, but an advantage more than compensating, addition of vitality and stamina, and Merino breeding is probably on a sounder footing than ever before in its history. The importance of the Merino breed will be appreciated when it is remembered that there are in the United States probably 20,000,000 or more of sheep of Merino foundation. Ali through the range country Merinos are found; no sheep can take its place there. Merinos are hardy, of long life, able to subsist on sparse vegetation, and to go for long periods with no food at all if necessary and yet retain the vital spark of life. However, it is no longer believed, even on the ranges, that flocks should be of purely Merino blood, it being recognized there that an infusion of from 25 per cent. to 50 per cent. of good "mutton" blood makes a far stronger sheep, a better mother and milker, and able to produce much stronger lambs, that sell at a higher price in the market place. On eastern farms the place of the "Merino" is as mother of winter lambs. For this purpose she will be the better if she herself has an infusion of nutton blood, say that her sire was a Shropshire, a Dorset Horn, or Southdown, and her dam any sort of Merino, the larger the better. The peculiar ability of the Merino to bring forth lambs at an early season gives her a distinct advantage over ewes of the English breeds for this industry. Another place for the Merino, which it will do for no other sheep to fill, while the present generation of men exists, is upon the farm of a "let-alone" and careless sheep farmer, for no English breed can endure as much lack of care and scant feeding in winter as the Merino. There is a belief also that Merino sheep suffer less from internal parasites than the English breeds. Rather, the writer believes from observation, that Merinos suffer quite as much as any, but having usually the appearance of dejection, a little added grief is not so noticeable. There is no doubt that the mutton breeds die quicker when attacked by parasites than Merinos, but they, as well as English breeds, should be kept healthy if they are to return the largest profit.

TYPES OF MERINOS.

As before mentioned, Merinos vary greatly according to the individual fancies of their breeders. They are divided in a general way into the American or Spanish Merino class, those being the smallest in size and the heaviest shearing proportionately of all Merinos; the Delaines, a class of larger sheep with heavier bodies, fewer or no wrinkles, fairly good mutton forms and a peculiar quality of wool called a "Delaine," or combing wool. Delaines vary greatly in their characteristics according to the fancies of their breeders, and there is in-them a considerable admixture of various.