'l'79i» improvctnent ofjheep and wool. ^9 



on one that is poorer, yet that this does not tend 

 to alter the ultimate proportional size of plints to 

 which nature has prescribed certain diiFerences that 

 cannot be interchanged. A gooseberry bufli, on a 

 rich soil, may, perhaps, sometimes attain as great a 

 size as a hawthorn on a poor soil, or a hawthorn as 

 an oak; yet, in equal circumstances, the hawthorn 

 will always exceed the gooseberry in size, and 

 the oak the hawthorn. It is just so, say they, 

 with the length of wool produced by certain breeds 

 of flieep, some of which, though they may be acci- 

 dentally lengthened or stinted, will, upon the whole, 

 preserve an invariable difference between each other, 

 if the breed be not contaminated. Which of these 

 opinions are well founded ? Nothing but accurate 

 experiments can afford a satisfactory answer to this 

 question. 

 10. Connection between length of staple and coarsenefs 



of filament. 



No opinion has been more generally received than 

 that there is a necefsary and invariable connection be- 

 tween the length of the staple of wool, and the coarse- 

 nefs of its filament. That is to say, that the finest 

 wool must nectfsarily be fhort, and vice versa. I 

 am, however, clearly convinced, that there is no real 

 foundation for this opinion ; because 1 have had in 

 my own flock, (heep that carried wool not exceeding 

 two inches in length, which was of an exceeding 

 coarse quality; and, at the same time, I had wool 

 that measuTed seventeen inches, which was finer in 

 ftlament than the finest Spaoifh wool I could obtain. 

 It is of great importance that this ' circumstance 



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