grass of a manured meadow. In one the staple is deficient in length,
in another in fineness; while in all there is a constant tendency
toward disease, rendering various washings and dippings indispensable
to prevent its falling out. The problem of the quality and quantity
of the carcass seems to be as doubtful and as far removed from a
satisfactory solution as that of the wool. Desirable breeds blundered
upon by long series of groping experiments are often found to be
unstable and subject to disease--bots, foot rot, blind staggers, etc.
--causing infinite trouble, both among breeders and manufacturers.
Would it not be well, therefore, for some one to go back as far as
possible and take a fresh start?

The source or sources whence the various breeds were derived is not
positively known, but there can be hardly any doubt of their being
descendants of the four or five wild species so generally distributed
throughout the mountainous portions of the globe, the marked
differences between the wild and domestic species being readily
accounted for by the known variability of the animal, and by the long
series of painstaking selection to which all its characteristics have
been subjected. No other animal seems to yield so submissively to the
manipulations of culture. Jacob controlled the color of his flocks
merely by causing them to stare at objects of the desired hue; and
possibly Merinos may have caught their wrinkles from the perplexed
brows of their breeders. The California species (Ovis montana)[2] is a
noble animal, weighing when full-grown some three hundred and fifty
pounds, and is well worthy the attention of wool-growers as a point
from which to make a new departure, for pure wildness is the one great
want, both of men and of sheep.