BY P. N. TREBECK, ESQ. 175 



similar wool (bottle broken) of the highest Silesian type, equal to 

 any ever produced in the colonies. It was grown by the late 

 Mr. C. C. Cox, in 1870, at Brombee near Mudgee. Elevation 

 about 1,700 feet above the sea. Formation, devonian slate and 

 limestone, country moderately timbered. 



The lai-ge bottle No. 3. This is also a good type of the earlier 

 wools for which New South "Wales became so famous. It was 

 grown in 1870 by Mr. J. B. Bettington, at Brindley Park, near 

 Merriwa, about 1,200 feet above the sea. Formation, rich soil, 

 from basaltic and carboniferous rocks, open country, lightly tim- 

 bered, well grassed. 



Bottle No. 4. As I shall be presently showing you modern 

 Victorian wool of good length, I have brought you a sample of 

 Mr. J. L. Currie's wool of 1870, a good type of the Australian 

 Merino wool of those days, grown on Basaltic Plains, about 1,200 

 feet above the sea, open plains, with scarcely any timber, well- 

 grassed. You will observe that even so far back, the Victorian 

 wool had assumed a distinct combing type, ■peculiarly its own, and 

 that colony, without doubt, now produces the very highest class 

 of this long lustrous wool. 



I will now draw your attention to our Merino Wools of the 

 present day, to show how the wool fi'om the same purely-bred 

 Merino has, under the influence of climate, soil, and culture, 

 attained a much greater length and improved considerably in 

 lustre and colour, while it has retained most of its excellent 

 qualities, extreme fineness of fibre alone excepted. 



In box No. 5, is a sample of Mr. H. C. White's wool from his 

 flock, at Havilah, near Mudgee, long considered one of the 

 premier ones of our colony. Formerly it much resembled the 

 fine Mudgee samples in the lai-ger bottles, but has now become 

 longer in staple and somewhat stouter in fibre, while it has 

 retained its denseness, the quality above all others the most 

 difficult to perpetuate here, and so necessary to introduce 

 periodically into our arid western interior. Havilah is about 1500 



