MERIWO WOOL, 



123 



cross with another and coarser woollen sheep. I am, however, 

 very much disposed to attribute the quality here spoken of, to 

 the better management of the wools in this country. Unfor- 

 tunately, we have no opportunities of discovering what Spanish 

 wool would be preserved in the grease j as the mode of laying 

 on the duties at Burgos, by the pound, prevents the grower or 

 merchant exporting it in that condition. Otherwise, I am 

 much inclined to think the same softness would be found in the 

 pure parent fleece, as in the spurious offspring. From the 

 small experience afforded by the ill-conditioned fleeces lately 

 imported with the sheep from Spain, I am very much con- 

 firmed in my opinion. 



Lambs' wool, not being so completely washed from its grease Lambs' wool 

 in Spain as sheep's wool, comes very near to the softness of cleaned and is 

 the Saxon and British lamb's wool. As a proof of their pos- »ofter. 

 sessing an extra quantity of grease, they are much sooner liable 

 to breed the worm than Spanish sheep's wool. I have often 

 proved, in the manufacture of wool, that where it has been 

 long saturated with oil, artificially, the fibre has been lubri- 

 cated with it, and the cloth very superior in feel and softness. 



It has long been known to manufacturers and wool-staplers, Veil wool is 

 that the wool of dead sheep, or Veil-wool, as it is cailed, is because" 

 very harsh, and quite unlike the same wool shorn from the cleared of all 

 sheeps' back, occasioned by its being disengaged from the skin, £ rease > 

 by the fell-monger, by the action of lime, which entirely dries 

 up and destroys the oily particles. May it not, in some mea- 

 sure, arise from the cause, that wool from sheep used to calca- and this may 



reous or silicious soils, is of a harsher description: as those ^ e t '? e Cills . e 



r harsh wool on 



from the Sussex, or Wiltshire downs, when compared with chalky soils. 



the fleeces grown on the argillaceous lands of Hereford and 

 Shropshire ? The absorption of the native grease, by the fre- 

 quent contact of the sheeps' coat with the soil, and the dust 

 from it, may help to remove that great preservative of softness, 

 and leave the fibre exposed, unprotected by moisture, to the 

 action both of the sun and rain, which, in those exposed 

 situations, would act with double power. 



From the above theory I would wish to deduce a few infe- Inferences: 

 rences, which may be of service in the growth and manage- l j iat ^} e . shee P 

 ment of British fine wools. In the first place, I am satisfied tected. 

 that nothing can so much tend to preserve this necessary state 



of 



