GENERAL REPORT OF THE JUDGES OF GROUP IX. 2 9 the general good ; and divesting myself of all views of gain, I pro pose to devote them to the diffusion of the race throughout our State, as far as their increase will permit. I shall send a pair to every county of the State, in rotation, until the whole are possessed of them.” In 1810 and 1811 there was an additional importation of about 2500 Merinos, all from the prime flocks of Spain, part of which went to New York and part to Boston. The Merinos arrived at a propitious time for their favorable reception. It was a period when our foreign trade was suspended by the embargo, and our people were driven to supply themselves with fabrics from their own resources. They hailed with eagerness the opportunity of supplying and improving the raw material for the wool-manufacture in which they had embarked. The Spanish races were eagerly sought to improve the common sheep, and flocks of full blood and grades were established in all parts of the country. Although the mania for Merino-growing, which rose so high during the war of 1812 that from 1000 to 1500 dollars was not unfrequently paid for Merino bucks, was checked by the peace of 1815, and the destruction of our wool-manufacture by the flood of importations, while many of the flocks were merged in the com mon coarse sheep of the country, others were kept pure and separate and the race was firmly established on our soil. In 1824 a new impulse was given to our wool-manufacture through legislative influences. Factories on a large scale were established for making broadcloths. The fashion of the times required cloths of great firmness, such as were made in England and France from the wools of German Electoral sheep-husbandry, which was then at the height of its prosperity. The necessities of the broadcloth-manufac- ture required a finer wool than was supplied by Spanish Merinos, as they then were commonly called. Saxon, or Electoral Merinos, were imported in large numbers. The record is preserved of 2963 which were imported in four years. The first aim of the wool-growers thence for a period of fifteen years was to engraft upon their flocks the Saxon blood, though, fortunately, a few never entirely abandoned the old Merinos. Through the effect of general causes, which insensibly led to the decline of superfine sheep-husbandry in all the Merino wool-producing countries of the world, there commenced in the United States about 1835 a reaction in favor of the neglected old-fashioned Merinos. Intelligent growers abandoned improvement through the Saxon stock, and sought for stock animals those of undoubted descent from the early Spanish importations. From this period the improve ment of the American Merinos, as they began to be designated,