192 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



and the Cape of Good Hope, although continental manufacturers 

 apparentlj^ have free admission to the London markets of the Cape 

 and Australian wools. The substantial advantages which the 

 English have in the command and first choice of these wools in 

 their own market, is well recognized by other European manu- 

 facturers. 



Germany, through the genius of her breeders and the advan- 

 tages of a dry climate and not too fertile soil, having produced 

 the electoral fine-woolled sheep, immediately availed herself of this 

 domestic possession to give a new character to woollen cloths. 

 The light and fine German broadcloths became the rivals of the 

 more substantial and less pliable West of England cloths, which 

 formerly had undisturbed sway, and still dispute supremacy with 

 them at the International Expositions. 



France furnishes a still more remarkable illustration of the 

 influence of a domestic wool production. It is well known that 

 the most luxurious woollen dress goods for fashionable consump- 

 tion, such as all-merinos, cashmeres, serges, matelasses, baskets, 

 challis, besides countless novelties appearing each recurring 

 season, are of French fabrication. France established her prestige 

 in this fabrication through her possession of the merino combing 

 wools, which she in fact created. The directors of the national 

 sheepfolds of France, after obtaining merinos from Spain, instead 

 of pursuing the German methods of breeding, aimed to increase 

 the size of the frame and the weight of the fleece of the animal. 

 With this increased size and weight, there was developed a corre- 

 sponding length of fibre, and a merino combing wool was for the 

 first time created. The French manufacturers were the first to 

 avail themselves of this new property of wool, which their own 

 territory supplied. National pride stimulated them to create 

 original fabrics from the new material furnished frorii domestic 

 sources. They invented all the fabrics above described, and more 

 recently worsted coatings ; in a word, all the woollen stuffs of the 

 nineteenth century, which distinguish themselves in their physi- 

 ognomy from the tissues of the preceding centuries. To France 

 must be accorded the honor of impressing the most characteristic 

 features, both of sheep husbandry and wool manufacture of the 

 present age. This was the result of the combined possession of 

 sheep husbandry and wool manufacture by a nation having a 

 genius for the arts, and at the same time always fully appreciating 

 the relations of the wool industry to a national economy. 



