132 FINE WOOL SHEEP HUSBANDRY. 



certainly profitable to add as much of it to the fleece 

 as is consistent with the greatest product of wool. 

 But I think it admits of no dispute that the excessive 

 amount sometimes seen giving to the long fleece, 

 under a hot autumn or spring sun, the appearance of 

 having been literally soaked in some oily fluid, is not 

 often the accompaniment of a specially thick fleece, 

 or of one which gives the best account of itself after 

 scouring.* The heaviest fleeced flocks of our country 

 do not present this appearance. Perhaps such an ex- 

 cess of secretion in one direction withdraws it from 

 other and concurrent channels. This suspicion is cer- 

 tainly reasonable, if yolk, as has been believed among 

 both the learned and unlearned, constitutes a portion 

 of the pabulum of wool. 



Few persons, perhaps, understand how great a quan- 

 tity of yolk is really found in some fleeces. Chester 

 Moses, an intelligent woolen manufacturer of Marcel- 

 lus, New York, writes me that in 1861 he cleansed a 

 ram's fleece, which weighed in the yolk 19| Ibs., and 

 " found 4 Ibs. of wool." The owner had paid a large 

 price for the animal. Mr. Moses has reported to me, 

 in conversation, a number of other equally strong cases, 

 but as he asks in his letter to be " spared from saying 

 more," I do not feel at liberty to cite them. 



All Merino rams' fleeces waste much more in cleans- 

 ing than ewes' fleeces, but will any one undertake to 

 say that it is good legitimate breeding to grow rams 

 even whose natural fleeces will shrink nearly four- 

 fifths in washing ! Breeding . such sheep may lead 



* The idea advanced by most of our early writers on Merinos, that 

 the more the yolk the finer the fleece, is now utterly exploded. 



