ifgt.^ improvement ofjhtep and wool. 55 



having observed that some of the common breeds carrj 

 long wool that is very coarse, have concluded that these 

 qualities (». e. length and coarsenefs,) cannot be dis- 

 joined; and that the influence of breed, in this case^ 

 will soon be lost. Others having observed that tho 

 fleece produced bj the same llitep in one season, 

 has been much coarser than that which the sams 

 flieep afforded in a former season, have thought they 

 had good reason to conclude, if the flieep chanced to 

 be moved from a coarser to a finer gang, that this 

 change was undoubtedly occasioned by the richer 

 pasture. They did not advert that if the season in 

 which the wool was produced was warmer than the 

 former, the wool must of necefsity have been much 

 coarser than the wool of the former season, though the 

 fheep had been kept upon its former pasture. If 

 the flieep chanced to go from a richer to a coar- 

 ser pasture, the obvious deterioration of the wool 

 would be as inevitably attributed to the pasture, not 

 to the change of climate between one year and ano- 

 ther. Thus it must ever happen, that so long zs we 

 are ignorant of the precise effect of a change of cli- 

 mate, pasture, management, sex, age, X^c. on the 

 quality of the same breed of flieep, we must be per- 

 petually groping in the dark, and reasoning as fancy 

 or caprice may dictate, so that our practice must be 

 unsteady, and our opinions contradictory. What" 

 enterprise, therefore, could be more worthy of a so- 

 ciety which has so strongly attracted the notice of all 

 Europe, than to begin by chalking out and steadily- 

 pursuing a set of experiments calculated to remove- 

 those doubts, and to introduce certainty in a matter 

 of SO much national imporcauce ? 



