THE DOMESTIC SHEEP: THEIR BREEDS, MANAGEMENT, ETC. BREEDS OF SHEEP IN THE UNITED STATES.-The principal breeds of sheep in the United States are the Native sheep, the Spanish and Saxon Merinos, the New Leicester, or Bakewell, the South-Down, the Cotswold, the Cheviot and the Lincoln. The Native Sheep are the variously mixed descendants of those originally introduced by the first colonists. They yielded wool suited only to the coarsest fabrics. They were slow in arriving at maturity, compared with the improved English breeds; and the weight of fleece, and quality and quantity of mutton, were inferior to the improved English breeds. They have now, however, become nearly extinct, by crosses with foreign breeds of later introduction. American Merinos. Of these there are three classes, or varieties. The first is a large, short-legged and hardy sheep, the wool ranging from medium to fine, and without hair when well fed-rarely exhibiting gum externally their wool thick, and comparatively long on the back and belly, and whiter than that of the French sheep called the Rambouillets, and their skin has the rich rose-color of the latter. The second general class of American Merinos are smaller than the preceding-less hardy-wool as a general thing finer-covered with a black pitchy gum on its extremities-fleece about one-fourth lighter than in class first. The third class, which have been bred mostly South, are still smaller and less hardyand carry still finer and lighter fleeces. The fleece is destitute of external gum. The sheep and wool bear a close resemblance to the Saxon; and if not actually mixed with that blood, they have been. formed into a similar variety, by a similar course of breeding. Class first are a larger and stronger sheep than those originally imported from Spain, carry much heavier fleeces, and in well selected flocks, or individuals, the fleece is of a decidedly better quality.* The Merino fleece is in Spain sorted into four parcels. The following cut, while it contains the portrait of a Merino ewe, points out the parts whence the different wools are generally procured. The division cannot always be accurate, and especially in sheep of an inferior quality, but it is more to be depended upon in the Merino sheep wherever found, for the fleece is more equally good, and the quantity of really bad wool is very small. Both Lasteyrie and Livingston agree in this division. The refina, or the pick-lock wool begins at the withers, and extends along the back to the setting on of the tail. It reaches only a little way down at the quarters, but, dipping down at the flanks, takes in all the superior part of the chest, and the middle of the side of the neck to the angle of the lower jaw. The fina, a valuable wool, but not so deeply serrated, or *Randall's "Sheep Husbandry." possessing so many curves as the refina, occupies the belly, and the quarters and thighs, down to the stifle joint. The terceira, or wool of the third quality, is found on the head, the throat, the lower part of the neck, and the shoulders, terminating at the elbow: the wool yielded by the legs, and reaching from the stifle to a little below the hock, forms a part of the same division. A small quantity of very inferior wool is procured from the tuft that grows on the forehead and cheeks-from the tail, and from the legs below the hock. The Spanish wool continues to be highly valued by the manufacturer; and the Spanish breed of sheep will be regarded with interest as the improver of the best old short-wooled ones, and the parent of a new race, spreading through every quarter of the world, and with which, so far as the fleece is concerned, none of the old breeds can be for a moment compared. Saxon Merinos.-This breed is the result of transferring, nearly a century ago, the best Spanish sheep into Saxony, where they appeared to thrive better than in their native region. Very great care is taken by the Saxon sheep-master in the selection of the lambs which are destined to be saved in order to keep up the flock: there is no part of the globe in which such unremitting attention is paid. to the flock. Mr. Charles Howard, in a letter with which he favored the author, says, that "when the lambs are weaned, each in his turn is placed upon a table, that his wool and form may be minutely observed." The finest are selected for breeding, and receive a first mark. When they are one year old, and prior to shearing them, another close examination of those previously marked takes place: those in which no defect can be found, receive a second mark, and the rest are condemned. A few months after, they in like manner receive a third mark, when the slightest blemish causes a rejection of the animal. The utmost care is also taken in the housing and feeding of their flocks, evidently aiming rather at a fine staple of wool, than a hardy race of sheep. Mr. Carr, a large sheep-owner in Germany thus describes their management and its effects: They are always housed at night, even in summer, except in the very finest weather, when they are sometimes folded in the distant fallows, but never taken to pasture until the dew is off the grass. In the winter they are kept within doors altogether, and are fed with a small quantity of sound hay, and every variety of straw, which has not suffered from wet, and which is varied at each feed; they pick it over carefully, eating the finer parts, and any grain that may have been left by the threshers. Abundance of good water to drink, and rock-salt in their cribs, are indispensables. . . . . They cannot thrive in a damp climate, and it is quite necessary that they should have a wide range of dry and hilly pasture of short and not over-nutritious herbage. If allowed to feed on swampy or marshy ground, even once or twice in autumn, they are sure to die of liver complaint in the following spring. If they are permitted to eat wet grass, or exposed frequently to rain, they disappear by hund reds with consumption. In these countries it is found the higher bred the sheep is, especially the Escurial, the more tender. The American Saxon sheep have been so largely intermixed with |