258 
about corresponded with Australian fine wools. The heavy American merino wool all 
falls into the second or medium class; but the grower of it, with only 15 per cent- 
against him in average selling price, and with more than 100 per cent. in his favor. 
according to Mr. Joubert’s showing, in average weight of fleece,* will, it is obvious, 
find the production of his heavy wools far the most profitable. Indeed, in our prin, 
cipal older wool-growing northern and eastern States, where the sheep-lands are gen- — 
erally worth at least $30 or $40 an acre, where the sheep require a full supply of arti- 
ficial feed during at least five months of the year, fleeces of the weight of those sent 
by Mr. Joubert, no matter how high their quality, would not pay the actual cost of 
growing them. This fact has been fully established by experience. Many Saxon 
sheep of like type were imported into this country between 1824 and 1828, and various: 
choice lots of them and other light-fleeced merino stocks have been introduced since. 
But at length sheep of this stamp have been almost wholly discarded by American 
wool-growers. Even our ‘“ Washington County wools,’’t formerly rivaling the Austra- 
lian wools in fineness and excelling them in soundness and in uniformity, have, after 
a long struggle, mostly given way to heavier fleeces produced by a cross with heavier- 
wooled stocks. The opening of cheap lands and perennial pasturage to sheep-hus-. 
bandry in some of our new States, and future circumstances more propitious than ex- 
isting ones to the extension of our fine-wool manufactures, may ultimately render the 
‘growing of fine merino wools profitable; but the attainment of this highly desirable 
result depends upon so many contingencies, and is liable to be so long delayed, that it 
would be the height of folly in our breeders to take preparatory steps in that direction 
at present. 
While the foregoing facts show, beyond all question, that the American is the most 
profitable merino for the United States, it is not by any means claimed that they show 
it would be the most profitable variety for Australia. The circumstances which regu- 
late the wool-markets of the two countries are essentially different. Our wools are 
grown exclusively to meet the demand of a home market, where both the consumption 
and the manufacture of medium merino wools are yastly in excess of the consumption 
and manufacture of fine wools. Australia grows wool entirely for export. She un- 
doubtedly finds a larger and more remunerative market for fine wools, or her intelligent 
and experienced growers would not continue to give their production the preference. 
Every practical breeder knows that the maximum of weight and the maximum of fine- 
ness in wool cannot be attained, or even approximately attained, in the same fleeces ; 
and hence to say, as I did, of the Australian merinos, that, ‘ compared with ours, they 
were a thin-wooled sheep,” coupled with the declaration that “ their wool was much 
finer than ours,” was no real or intended disparagement of them. 
Here I would choose to close this letter, but justice to the gentleman who imported 
the Australian sheep described by me compels me to notice the imputations made on 
him in Mr. Joubert’s letter to you, and by a writer in the Sydney Morning Herald, 
whose article Mr. Joubert forwarded. The history of that importation is briefly as 
follows: Mr. Charles J. Kenworthy, an American medical gentleman who had resided 
a number of years in Australia, wrote me from Ballarat, Victoria, early in 1864, that 
he was about to return to the United States, and should bring with him some Aus- 
tralian merinos. He was sanguine that, with their previous habits, these sheep could 
subsist in great numbers, and all the year round, on the “ piny barrens of the South- 
ern States,” and thus utilize, with great profits, an immense region then and now en- 
tirely unproductive and almost totally valueless; and he was determined to commence 
the experiment on a small scale. On his arrival in this country he, by my permission, 
brought the sheep to my farm until he could make other arrangements, He informed 
me that he obtained them in Victoria from Thomas Learmonth, J. L. Currie, and T. 
Shaw, jr., breeders of high standing in that province, winners of prizes on sheep at the 
Melbourne exhibitions, and (in 1865) on wool exhibited at Melbourne, and London,Eng- 
land. Dr. Kenworthy showed me letters from two at least of the above gentlemen, 
couched rather in the language of friendly regard than of business, mentioning the 
sheep they had carefully selected for him, declining any compensation for them, and 
expressing kindly wishes for the success of his “experiment.” The doctor’s return 
was during the din of civil war and when the pine-barrens of the South were no places 
to try experiments in sheep-husbandry. Subsequently, for reasons which do not re- 
quire explanation here, he gave up the undertaking. He never sold or offered for sale 
one of the sheep, never called or desired me to call public attention to them. And, 
before dropping the subject, I will add that Lhave no doubt they were very choice 
specimens of Australian-bred merinos. The imported ewes annually sheared from 34 
* Wool is usually washed cleaner for market in Australia than in the United States, 
but-the difference is not sufficient materially to affect the above estimate. 
+ They took their name from Washington County, Pennsylvania, and were grown in 
the southwest counties of that State, the Pan-Handle of West Virginia, and the adja- 
cent portions of Ohio. 
