[Jacob-list] importations

[Neal and Louise Grose]

Thanks Fred,

Ingrid's book cites the use of Jacob's Sheep as lawn ornaments in Victorian estates. My guess is that the Anglophiles among the Nuevo-rich set may well have brought in a few sheep for curiosity's sake. This would not have been as an "importation". It would have given someone the chance to collect several and inbreed for type a group that was kept in the back yard.

Neal

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Jacobflock at aol.com 
  To: nlgrose at yadtel.net 
  Cc: jacob-list at jacobsheep.com 
  Sent: Tuesday, September 15, 2009 11:31 PM
  Subject: Re: [Jacob-list] importations




  In a message dated 9/13/2009 8:42:55 P.M. Central Daylight Time, nlgrose at yadtel.net writes:
    There were importations in the 50s, and we THINK that there may have been some in the 1890s. Certainly there have been some odd groups of Jacobs that no one could really account for. Not sure anyone has really figured it all out.

  Would be very interested in the site or information suggesting what we now call Jacobs were in fact Jacobs and may have been in the US or North America in the 1890's.  The earliest text reference I can find is to a ram of "the Scottish 4-horn race." used in breeding experiements related to the "poll/horn/hornless" gene expressin in 1912 at the University of New HAmpshire.  But I have not been able to find any picture or record of any experiement results related to "the Scottish 4-horn race" ram which would confirm that it was what we today call the Jacob.

  The contemporaneous printing of Elwe's Primitive Breeds and their Crosses at Bristol, England, the following year and the writings of Heatly, Ewart, etc, at this time suggest a very few flocks located in the Parks and a few sheep here and there... I counted like 28 flocks in England in the 1910-1915 period,  some known to be crosses.  My sense is they were rare as documented and reported and would not be international "export/import" goods considering the population and basic economics of the breed.  However, as Elwes notes (1913), the crosses to the primitive breeds could be locally profitable in the hills mid-lands which may account for some of the "cross flocks" in the 1900s census.  

  Fred Horak
  St. Jude's Farm
  1165 E. Lucas Road
  Lucas, TX  75002
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