"RATHER LARGER SHEEP."

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 17692, 19 February 1923, Page 3

"RATHER LARGER SHEEP."

merino origin discussed. Till the Middle Ages the Spanish sheep was the "churro," a small animal, with reddish-brown ■ wool of straight staple, says Mr David Hannay, an authority on Spanish matters, in the "Edinburgh Review." The origin and the name of the merino have been accounted for with confidence, but with a lack of historical evidence. Popular etymology, guessing its fantastic way, has derived the name from "marina," of or belonging to the sea, assuming that the ancestors of the flocks were brought to Spain from England at the time of marriages between the_ two Eoyal houses. Another supposition is that the sheep were "merinos" because they were under the peculiar care of the Royal judges, who also were so called by contraction from "majorinus." Dr. Julius Klein, of Harvard, shows in his two books on "The Mesta," an old Spanish organisation controlling the wool industry, that there is neither evidence nor probability to support these guesses; but he favours an explanation which, in Mr Hannay's view, is not .much more acceptable. _ Dr. Klein is much inclined to believe that the word came from the name of the Beni-Marin, a people of Northern Africa. The Spaniards, admits Mr Hannay, had imported breeding rams from Africa in Roman time. Throughout the Early Middle ;Ages the association between the two lands was close, and the vocabulary of the Spanish pastoral industry is full of. words of Arabic and Berber origin. But word origins are not to be judged lightly by appearances. Prosaic coiiimon-sense, says Mr, Hannay, is tempted to conclude that "merino" is from "majorinus," but simply because that post-Augustan word means "rather larger." The merino was bigger and more important than the churro, and, since it was so, why not say so? As for the origin of the breed, Mr Hannay considers that probability analogy, and downright good sense join to convince us that there was no single starting-point. The merino, one may be pretty sure, was formed, in the course of generations, by cross-breed-ing and selection. Perhaps English stock had a share with African in the combination finally evolved. Castile had regular political association with England by way of the Plantagenet possessions in South-Western France, and English pilgrims, who traded, came to Santiago de Galiciji—some by the road of the Good Baron Saint James, which began at ■ Bordeaux, and others by a direct sea route. It is no guesswork, but a manifest fact, that the sheep was formed by native breeders, who may have sought stock animals from anywhere between the Atlas range in Africa and the north side of the Channel. For more than five centuries, from the year 1273, the Spanish sheepbreeders suffered from State interference with their industry, which is discussed in the article.