82 IMPROVEMENT OF THE BREEDS. 



during nearly eight months of the year ; and the cold 

 Is so intense, that fires are necessary in the houses 4 

 throughout the night. But in Cayenne and its neigh- I 

 bourhood, which were cleared of wood about one hun- 

 dred and fifty years ago, the increase of temperature is 

 now so great, that during the night the people are an- 

 noyed by the warmth, and the rains are neither so 

 frequent nor so heavy as in the rest of the countr}'. 

 Paris and Quebec are nearly under the same latitude ; 

 yet the air of the latter is much colder than that of the 

 former, evidently from its being surrounded by forests 

 so dense and umbrageous, that sun and wind are alike 

 denied access to the earth. The difference between a 

 cleared and an uncleared country, in regard to wool, is 

 well illustrated, by contrasting North America, its 

 heavy woods and stagnant atmosphere, with the thinly * 

 timbered surface and constantly renovated air of New I 

 South Wales. It is only within the last few years that 

 Canada has been enabled to compete with Britain in 

 the article of wool, and that the sheep, which were of 

 the coarsest kind, have been so improved as to do away 

 with the prejudices against their mutton. Australia^ 

 on the other hand, has, from its earliest colonization, 

 figured as a sheep-rearing country of the first impor- 

 tance ; and nothing has conduced so much to this as i*s 

 freedom from closely planted trees, by the absence of 

 which the settler is enabled at once to stock his farm 

 with the best of sheep. Nature, in fact, could never 

 have intended sheep to pasture in a wooded country, 

 as is clearly evinced by their coat, to which every thing 

 ia the shape of bush or tree is in the highest degree 

 inimical. 



