THE WILD SHEEP OF CALIFORNIA.

Dunstan Times, Issue 725, 10 March 1876, Page 3

THE WILD SHEEP OF CALIFORNIA.

—o — Tlio California species {Ovia montana) ia a noble animal, weighing when fully grown some 350 pounds, as ia well worthy the attention of wool giowors as a point from which to make a new departure. That it will breed with the domestic sheep I have not the slightest doubt, and I cordially recommend the experiment to the woolgrowers’ associations as one of groat national importance. , The clothing of our wild sheep is composed of fine wool and coarse hair. The hairs are from about two to four inches long, mostly of a dull blue-gruy color, though varying somewhat with the season. In general characteristics they are closely related to the hairs of the deer and antelope, being light, spongy, and elastic, with a highly polished surface, and though somewhat ridged and spiraled like wool, they do not manifest the slightest tendency to felt or become taggy. A hair two and a half inches long, which is perhaps near the average length, will stretch about one-fourth of an-iuch without breaking. The number of hairs growing upon a square inch is about 10,000 ; the number of wool fibres is about 25,000, or two and a half times that of the hairs. The wool fibres are white and glossy, and beautifully spiraled into ringlets, The average length of the staple is about an inch and a half. A fibre of this length, when growing undisturbed among the hairs, measures about an inch ; hence the degree of curliness may be easily seen and infeired. Wild wool is too fine to stand by itself, the fibres being about as frail and invisible as the floating threads of spiders, whilst the hair against which they lean stands erect like hazel wands ; but notwithstanding the great dissimilarity in size and appearance, the wool and hair are forms of the same thing, modified in just that way and to just that degree that renders them most perfectly subservient to the well-being of the sheep. Furthermore, it will be observed that these wild modifications are entirely distinct from those which are brought by chance into existence through the accidents and caprices of culture. It is now some 3,600 years since Jacob kissed his mother and set out across the plains of Padan-aram to begin his experiment upon the flocks of his uncle Laban; and notwithstanding the high degree of excellence he attained as a wool-grower, and the innumerable painstaking efforts subsequently made by individuals and associations in all kinds of pastures and climates, we still seem to be as far from definite and satisfactory results as we ever were. In one breed the wool is apt to wither and crauklo like we have on a sun beaten hill-side. In another it is lodged and matted together like the bush-tangled grass of a manured meadow. In one the staple is deficient in length, in another in firmness; while in all there is a constant tendency to disease, rendering various washings and dippings indispensable to prevent its falling out. The problem of the quantity and quality of the carcass seems to be as doubtful and as far removed from a satisfactory solution as that of the wool. The sources whence the various breeds Were derived is not positively known, but there can hardly bo any doubt of their descendants of tho four or five wild species generally distributed throughout the mountainous portion of the globe, the marked differences between the wild and domestic species being readily accounted for by the known variability of the animal. No other animal seems to yield so submissively to the manipulations of culture. Jacob controlled the color of his flock merely by causing them to staro at objects of the desired hue ; and possibly merinos may have caught their wrinkles from the perplexed brows of their leaders.—J o’.m Muir, in the Overland Monthly.