It is of the utmost importance for those _commencing_ flocks, either of full-bloods, or by crossing, to select the choicest rams. A grown ram may, by methods which will hereafter be described, be made to serve from one hundred to one hundred and fifty ewes in a season. A good Merino ram will, moderately speaking, add more than a pound of wool to the fleece of the dam, or every lamb got by it, from a common-woolled ewe--that is, if the ewe at three years old sheared three pounds of wool, the lamb at the same age will shear four. This would give one hundred or one hundred and fifty pounds of wool for the use of a ram for a single season; and every lamb subsequently got by him adds a pound to this amount. Many a ram gets, during his life, eight hundred or one thousand lambs. Nor is the extra amount of wool all. He gets from eight hundred to one thousand half-blooded sheep, worth double their dams, and ready to be made the basis of another and higher stride in improvement. A good ram, then, is as important and, it may be, quite as valuable an animal as a good farm-horse stallion. When the number of a ram's progeny are taken into consideration, and when it is seen over what an immense extent, even in his own direct offspring, his good or bad qualities are to be perpetuated, the folly of that economy which would select an inferior animal is sufficiently obvious. It will be found the best economy in starting a flock, where the proper flocks from which to draw rams are not convenient, to purchase several of the same breed, of course, but _of different strains of blood_. Thus ram No. 2 can be put on the offspring of No. 1, and the reverse; No. 3 can be put on the offspring of both, and both upon the offspring of No. 3. The changes which can be rung on three distinct strains of blood, without in-and-in breeding close enough to be attended with any considerable danger, are innumerable. The brother and sister, it will be born in mind, are of the same blood; the father and daughter, half; the father and granddaughter, one-fourth; the father and great-granddaughter, one-eighth; and so on. Breeding between animals possessing one-eighth of the same blood, would not be considered very close breeding; and it is not unusual, in rugged, well-formed families, to breed between those possessing one-fourth of the same blood. If, however, these rams of different strains are brought promiscuously, without reference to similarity of characteristics, there may, and probably will, be difference between them; and it might require time and skill to give a flock descended from them a proper uniformity of character. Those who breed rams for sale should be prepared to furnish different strains of blood, with the necessary individual and family uniformity. GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF BREEDING.