Col. Josiah W. Ware, of Berryville, Clarke County, was an importer of the improved Cotswolds or New Oxfordshire as early as 1848, in which year he purchased 2 ewes that had taken the prize at the royal show at York. In 1848 he purchased o of the ewes that took the prize at Norwich, all tupped by a ram weighing 420 pounds that had taken the royal prize in 1847. He purchased of Charles Large, Northbeach, and none but prize sheep. In giving an account of his Cotswolds in 1855, Col. Ware said that originally he had a good flock of sheep, but found, beside the fleece that each sheep at 4 years old on grass would not command more than $2.50, the best, fed on grain in the winter, would not bring over $4. To supply a butcher each year a lot of fat sheep of a farmer’s own raising would require him to keep four lots on hand to sell one, the fleece but little more than paying for its keep. To rely upon the fleece alone was too insignificant a matter. At the highest price paid per pound in the United States, it would require many sheep to make a small amount of money. Not satisfied with this condition of a flairs he determined to purchase some of the large mutton sheep of England, and chose the improved Cots wold to see what could be done with them. Believing it the true policy to have the best, as it soonest repays outlays, he imported each year the winners of the highest prizes of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, confident in his acquisition that if they beat England he must surely have the purest and best that England could produce. Col. Ware found, alter putting three crosses of his imported rams on his ordinary flock, that the fleece greatly increased in weight, and sold for as much per pound as the fleece of ordinary sheep; and he sold the mutton from these crosses readily, the fall after 1 year old, for $10 on the farm, so that he sold out clean every year, keeping none over the winter but the breeding ewes and the lambs of the same spring. The result of the improvement was that where he formerly sold one mutton sheep 4 years old for $2.50 on grass arid $4 on grain in winter, he sold 4 of his improved sheep for $40, and realized more on the wool. The success was not lost on the farmers of bis section, who procured rams from him and improved their flocks, until, in the words of Col. W are, ‘ this little county of Clarke that I live in has now a reputation for mutton probably unequaled by any State in the Union. It is not unusual for a flock of 40 to 50 ewes, part bred, to yield in mutton and wool each year from $500 to $650.’ ”

Reference Data:

Special Report on the History and Present Conditions of the Sheep industry of the United States, by Dr. D.E. Salmon, US Bureau of Animal Industry, 1892, page 462