Improved European breeds have been so largely introduced during the present century, that the United States at present possesses every known breed which could be of particular benefit to its husbandry. By the census of 1860, there were nearly twenty-three and a half millions of sheep in this country, yielding upwards of sixty and a half million pounds of wool. An almost infinite variety of crosses have taken place between the Spanish, English, and "native" families; carried, indeed, to such an extent that there are, comparatively speaking, few flocks in the United States that preserve entire the distinctive characteristics of any one breed, or that can lay claim to unmixed purity of blood. The principal breeds in the United States are the so-called "Natives;" the Spanish and Saxon Merinos, introduced from the countries whose names they bear: the New Leicester, or Bakewell; the South-Down; the Cotswold; the Cheviot; and the Lincoln--all from England. NATIVE SHEEP. This name is popularly applied to the common coarse-woolled sheep of the country, which existed here previously to the importation of the improved breeds. These were of foreign and mostly of English origin, and could probably claim a common descent from no one stock. The early settlers, emigrating from different sections of the British Empire, and a portion of them from other parts of Europe, brought with them, in all probability, each the favorite breed of his own immediate neighborhood, and the admixture of these formed the mongrel family now under consideration. Amid the perils of war and the incursions of beasts of prey, they were carefully preserved. As early as 1676, New England was spoken of as "abounding with sheep."