SHEEP HUSBANDRY IN THE SOUTH. 23 



LETTER II. 



EFFECT OF CLIMATE, CONTINUED. 



Effect of Climate on quality of Wool... Warmth of Climate renders Wool coarser Reasons ... Effect of 

 Herbage... Opinions of Youatt Doctor Parry English Staplers Writer. ..Can the tendency to grow 

 coarser be resisted?. ..Opinions of Youatt Lasteyrie Mr. Lawrence... Experiment in Australia Cape of 

 Good Hope South' of Illinois Kentucky Tennessee Mississippi New-York... Warm Climates render 

 Wools softer and longer, thus adding materially to their value. . .Proved to be the case in Australia. . .Tes- 

 timony of English Wool-factors and Staplers... Same effect produced in the United States... Testimony 

 cf Mr. Cockrill. 



Dear Sir : We come now to discuss the effect of Climate on the quality 

 of WOOL 



There can be but little doubt, other things being equal, that the pelage 

 of the Sheep and some other animals, becomes finer in cold climates and 

 coarser in warm ones. This is usually attributed, by theoretical writers, 

 to the' effect of cold and heat in contracting or expanding the pores. This 

 may have some effect, but to suppose that the delicate tissues of the skin 

 can act, to any great extent, mechanically, in compressing the harder and 

 highly elastic ones of the hair or wool, or compel their attenuation so as 

 to permit their escape through diminished apertures, like the process of , 

 wire drawing, is, it seems to me, to assume that matter acts contrary to 

 its ordinary laws. I am rather disposed to look for the causes of this 

 phenomenon, in the amount and quality of the nutriment received by the 

 animal. It was stated, in my preceding letter, that warm climates, by 

 affording succulent herbage during a greater portion of the year, maintain 

 in greater activity those secretions which form wool, and thus increase the 

 quantity or weight of the fleece. The weight is increased by increasing 

 the length and thickness of the separate fibres, just as plants put forth 

 longer and thicker stems on rich soils than on poor ones. 



Mr. Youatt, in his excellent and much quoted work on Sheep, after dis- 

 cussing and admitting, to a certain extent, the influence of warm temper- 

 atures in rendering wool coarser, says : 



" Pasture has a far greater influence on the fineness of the fleece. The staple of the wool, 

 like every other part of the sheep, must increase in length or in bulk when the animal has 

 a superabundance of nutriment ; and, on the other hand, the secretion which forms the wool 

 must decrease like every other, when sufficient nourishment is not afforded. When little 

 cold has been experienced in the winter, and vegetation has been scarcely checked, the 

 sheep yield an abundant crop of wool, but 'the fleece is perceptibly coarser as well as 

 heavier. When frost has been severe and the ground long covered with snow if the flock 

 has been fairly supplied with nutriment, although the fleece may have lost a little in weight, 

 it will have acquired a superior degree of fineness and a proportionate increase of value,' 

 Should, however, the sheep have been neglected and starved during this prolongation of 

 cold weather, the fleece as well as the carcass is thinner ; and although it may have pre- 

 served its smallness of filament, it has lost in weight and strength and usefulness. These 

 are self-evident facts, and need not be enforced by any labored argument."* 



Doct. Parry, a correct and able English writer, remarks : 



" Sheep breeders have observed a sort of gross connection between, the food and quality 

 of the fleece. . . . The fineness of a sheep s fleece of a given breed is, within certain 

 limits, inversely as its fatness, and perhaps also (although I am not certain on this point) aa 

 the quickness with which it grows fat. A sheep which is fat has usually comparatively 

 coarse \\ << oi, and one which is lean, either from want of food or disease, has the finest wool; 

 and the veij' same sheep may at different times, according to these circumstances, hava 

 fleeces of all tin. Sxtermediate qualities from extreme fineness to comparative coarseness." 



* Yooatt on Sheep, p '''O. 



