EVENNESS OF MERINO WOOL. 73 



relative value of our fine and coarse wools, it is known to all 

 conversant with the subject, that uniformly and under all 

 circumstances, there has been a much greater demand for 

 medium than for very fine wools in the American Wool 

 Market; and the table of prices presently to be given will 

 show that the former have always borne a more renumerating 

 price than the latter to the producer. This was true even 

 before our broad-cloth manufactories sunk under the horizontal 

 tariff of 1846. Before that time, by far the greater portion of 

 our home manufactured woolens did not require staples above 

 medium in quality. And of late years fashion has lent its aid 

 still further to reduce the demand for the finer staples. There 

 has been a steadily increasing tendency among our best 

 dressed and most fashionable population to substitute for the 

 broadcloths and fine black cassimeres formerly worn for dress, 

 comparatively coarse cassimeres of various, and among the 

 young, of "fancy" colors. 



All these causes combined have turned the domestic 

 demand for wools above the grade of coarse, principally into 

 a channel where the requirements of the market are met, and 

 most profitably met for the producer, by the heavy-fleeced 

 American Merino. Should our manufactories of broadcloths 

 and other fine textures revive, as it is to be hoped they may, 

 so far as to supply the domestic demands for such fabrics, 

 there will be an additional call for finer wool, and this will 

 necessarily increase the demand for finer sheep. 



EVENNESS. Evenness of quality throughout the fleece, so 

 far as it is attainable, is one of the best results as well as 

 proofs of good breeding. Those usually short, detached, not 

 very coarse, glistening particles of hair found in the fleece, 

 termed "jar," are very objectionable though they mostly 

 drop out in the different processes to which wool is subjected 

 in manufacturing. They are not so objectionable, however, 

 as that long, strong, rooted hair which crops out through the 

 wool on the thighs and on the edges of the folds particularly 

 where the latter run over the neck and shoulders in very large 

 prominent rolls. I would not reject an otherwise valuable 

 ewe, of known purity of blood, because half a dozen hairs 

 barely showed themselves on the back edge of and half way 

 down the thigh though I would much prefer not to see them 

 there, and I would breed such a ewe to a ram which would 

 be sure to leave no such bad mark on the common progeny. 

 But I would much dislike to breed from a ram exhibiting 

 4 



