THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



397 



Now, we are not in-epaved to admit to tlio full the 

 reason so plausibly assigned by the cotton advocate, 

 nor to place very crreat reliance on his statistics re- 

 garding wool. He Slates thi! British wool grown in 

 1857 at 14;5,042,78-2 lbs. at l!)d. a lb., which gives a 

 value of.£ll,322,-210. That grown in 1835 he «xes 

 at 108,000,000 lbs. at IS^d. a pound, making an aggre- 

 gate of i.'(i, 075, 000. This chanue in the inaimfactiirc 

 from pure woollens to mixed wool and cotton fabrics, 

 he tells us, has been attended with an unexpected gain 

 to the British wool-growers, by an increase of trade 

 ami higher price amounting to 5]- millions sterling. 

 The same increase of prosperity, and to a large ex- 

 tent (Mr. Ash worth adds), has been shared by the 

 bliccp-farmers of Ireland ; but thn accounts are nut 

 cli'ar, in consequence of largo quantities of Irish wool 

 having been sold for shipment to France, Belgium, and 

 Germany." 



Now, however well read he may be in the history 

 and statistics of the cotton trade and cotton manufac- 

 tures of the country, we fear Mr. Ashworth's views 

 and figures respecting wool and woDllens are less to be 

 relied on ; and we mu^t, therefore, join issue with him 

 on several points. 



France we know to bo, like ourselves, a largo im- 

 porter of foi'eign wool; but wo are not aware that she 

 seeks specially that of Irish origin, and we doubt 

 whether the Irish wools do not, for the most part, go to 

 Liverpool, and, through the public wool sales tlurc, 

 enter largely into the British manufictures. Fiom 

 3,000 to 4,000 bales of Irish wool, wo know, roach 

 Liverpool annually, the average import of the last six 

 years being 3 300 bales. 



French buyers no doubt appear at our London sales, 

 as do purchasers from other parts of tiie Continent. 

 We have not the latest fi^ni-es of the imports of wool 

 into Franco, but in 18.53 France imported 48,400 OOOIbs. 

 of wool. She has of late years been paying increased 

 attention to sheep-culture i:i Algeria, where there are 

 now about eight millions sheep, and about sixteen million 

 pounds of wool are produced there. 



Wo next join issue upon the quantity of sheep in the 

 kingdiim, and the British wool proiluced; and hero we 

 certainly enter upon very debatable ground. Un- 

 fortunately we have no return of the number of sheep 

 kept in Great Britain. Mr. Braithwaite Poole, in 

 1853, estimated the total annual growth or produce of 

 wool in Great Britain and Ireland at 32,000,(i00 

 fleeces, averaging 4 lbs each ; and taking the wool to 

 be worth Is. a iiound, this would give a total value of 

 nearly ^£"'6, 500,000. In the oflicial British catalogue 

 of the Paris Kxhibition (1855), the estimated annual 

 produce of wool in the United Kingdom is stated to be 

 about 130,000,000 lbs. 



It is easy to assume figures ; but estimates necessa- 

 rily differ ; and we would refer to Mr. McQueen's Sta- 

 tistics of the British Empire (p. 21) — no mean a>tthority 

 — I ho estimated the pi-oduction of British wo(d in 

 1835 at 240.700,000 I'-s., valued at £13,070,100, and 

 the foreign wool then imported at 40,500,000 lbs., 

 valued at .£'3.750,000. If the number of sheep wTrc 

 then 48,000,000 in the kingdom, although this may 

 have been too high an estimate, they must in twenty 

 years have somewhat increased. We know, by the ngri- 

 cultiiral returns, there are in Ireland anil .Scotland at 

 the present time about 9,000,000 sheep, and in Eng- 

 land and Wales thnre cannot be less than 40,000,000 ; 

 and at 5 lbs. per head all round, the wool produce of 

 the United Kingdom would be 245,000,01)0 lbs. — no 

 increase, after all, upon Mr. McQueen's estiTnatc. ■ 



But, then, these assumptions depend upon very un- 

 certain data, owing to the absence of precise returns of 

 the sheep in England, and the different eveirage wpight 



of the fleece, which would not perhaps equal 5 lbs. per 

 sheep all round, now that short-woolled sheep are more 

 general than they were in former years, and making 

 allowance for lambs. 



We now receive much larger supplies of foreign and 

 colonial wool than formerly, our imports having nearly 

 trebled in twenty years, reaching in 1857 to 120.^ mil- 

 lion pounds. And our shipments of woollen yarn 

 andfaJjrics to foreign status and our colonies are also on 

 a largely ip.crea.sed scale, owing to the increase of 

 wealth and population. While in 1835 our woollen 

 manufactures and yarn exported were only valued at 

 i,'7,000,000, in 1857 they reached .£13,047,180. 



But this was by no means owing to the extra- 

 ordinary ability or skill of the cotton manufacturers ; 

 for only .£2,000,000 in value of the exports came under 

 the denomination of " mixed fabrics," and the homo 

 consumption of these mixed cottons and woollen goods 

 was certainly not so large as that. 



We cannot pa.ss over, in our consideration of British 

 wool, the increase in our Colonial production. Aus- 

 tralia and New Zealand, the Cape Colony, British 

 India, and Canada have largely increased their num- 

 ber of sheep, and their yield of wool. In Australia, 

 in the two principal colonies, we find, in 1855, Vic- 

 toria had 5,322,000 sheep, and clipped 22,353,000 lbs. 

 wool ; New South Wales, 8,144,000 sheep, and clipped 

 17,071,000 lbs. wool. 



The apparent anomaly in these figures is attributed 

 to two causes : the lighter fleece ol the old colony, and 

 the fact that Port Pliillip is of more convenient access 

 to the eouth-western district of New South Wales than 

 Sydney, and therefore receives the pastoral produce of 

 that locality. 



But the considerable trade of those parts of Ncv/ 

 South Wales and of the adjacent porliin of Victoria is 

 now vigorously contested by a third Jiarty, the co- 

 lonists of South Australia, who have already navi- 

 gated the river Murray as far as Albnry, and conveyed 

 the wool by steamers and barijes to the shipping port 

 of their own colony. The wool produced on extended 

 pasture runs in the northern runs of Au.stralia. now 

 that the xMorcton Bay district is to bo formed into a 

 separate colony, will no longer swell the rctuins of 

 Sydney. 



The export of wool from Port Phillip has slowly 

 increased in spite of the attractions of the gold dig- 

 gings. Only one year was it beaten back (1851) as 

 will be seen from the following table : 



YEAUI.Y EXPORT OF WOOL FROM VICTORIA BEFORE 

 AND AFTER THE GOLD DISCOVERY. 



Years. Wo(l, iu lbs. Yeara. Wool, in Ihs. 



184G .. 6,406,950 .. 1851 .. lf:,.345 Of;0 



1817 .. 10,210,030 .. 1852 .. 20,217.000 



1818 .. 10,554,663 .. 1853 .. 20,? 13,000 



1819 .. 14,567,005 .. 1854 .. 22,998 Or'O 

 1850 .. 18,C91,000 .. 1855 .. 22,353,000 

 The imports from the Australian colonies la*t 



vcar fell back to about the produce of 1855, being 

 40,000,000lbs., liavingin 1850 exceeded .52,000,0001 b.s. 

 Various inducing causes, other than the trivial 

 reason assigned by Mr. Ashworth, must be looked to 

 as having stimulated the i)roduction of British wool at 

 home and abroad. The tide of emigration ; now and 

 extended pasture land in ,\ustralia, i\ew Zealand, and 

 SouthcrnAfricri ; the jrrogress of settlement in Canada ; 

 the extension of trade with Central Asia (our imports 

 from In<lia having risen to upwards of 1!) millions) ; 

 the diffusion of wealth owing to the gold discoveries 

 and incrca.sed commerce, and the greater attention paid 

 to sheep culture, owing to the demand for food — 

 all these and other reasons might be much more truly 

 assigned for the existing prosperity and enhanced 

 domand. 



