180 Notice of the White Mountains. 
the wool is generally short and coarse, but longer and finer 
in cold regions. In Spain, two and a half pounds of wool 
is the average product of their merinos, and of a quality 
inferior to ours; in the middle States, and valley of the 
Hudson, the same; on the elevated groand in the western 
part of Connecticut and Massachusetts, three, and in some 
flocks, four pounds. In the southern and middle part of 
Vermont, from four to four and an half. In Maine, the 
average is five, and, in a few choice flocks, six pounds the 
sheep. The best merino wool of Europe, is from the bleak 
mountains of Saxony. The quantity and quality of wool 
is also considerably affected by the food, management, 
and selection of flocks—as nature bountifully provides a 
dress for all animals according to their wants. Furs a 
found to be good, and the staple long, in proportion to 
coldness of climate. me 
_ The northern part of the United States and Canada, in 
addition to climate, have, for the raising of wool, an im- 
portant advantage over England, and the south of Europe, 
in cheapness of soil, much land being required for the sup- 
port of sheep.. The fee simple of good sheep farms in 
America, can be procured with the amount of the annual 
rent and taxes of the same quality of ground in England, 
Posteript to the above, 
- Returning from the White Mountains, I visited the 
Franconia iron works. They are not in a very prosper- 
ous condition ; the ore is two hundred feet below the sur- 
face, and the veins lessen. [ passed a day at the copperas 
works, in Strafford, Vermont. Eleven men are employed, 
who calculated to make, per ann, four hundred hogsheads 
of copperas, of fifteen hundred weight each. The sulphu- 
ret of iron is no way essentially different from that at the 
mineral spring at Litchfield, and that forming extensive 
beds in. Morris county. New-Jersey, which | visited in 
company with Colonel Gibbs. The manufacture of cop- 
peras in New-Jersey was rendered unproductive by the 
erroneous course adopted. They spread the ore ground 
fine, in thin layers on an inclined plane, over which watet 
Was passed, and oxygen was slowly absorbed without sen- 
sible heat. At Strattord, the ore is broken to the size © 
