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be performed in a natural manner. The principle is the 

 same as that of the practice alluded to in the Third 

 Lecture, of giving chopped straw with barley. 



In washing sheep, the use of water containing 

 carbonate of lime should be avoided; for this substance 

 decomposes the yolk of the wool, which is an animal 

 soap, the natural defence of the wool; and wool often 

 washed in calcareous water, becomes rough and more 

 brittle. The finest wool, such as that of the Spanish 

 and Saxon sheep, is most abundant in yolk. M. Van- 

 quelin has analysed several different species of yolk, 

 and has found the principal part of all of them a soap, 

 with a basis of potassa, (i. e. a compound of oily mat- 

 ter and potassa), with a little oily matter in excess. 

 He has found in them likewise, a notable quantity of 

 acetate of potassa, and minute quantities of carbonate 

 of potassa and muriate of potassa, and a peculiar odor, 

 ous animal matter. 



M. Vanquelin states, that he found some speci- 

 mens of wool lose as much as 45 per cent, in being 

 deprived of their yolk; and the smallest loss in his 

 experiments was 35 per cent. 



The yolk is most useful to the wool on the back 

 of the sheep, in cold and wet seasons; probably the 



down one half a field of a considerable extent with this grass, combined with 

 white clover. The other half of the field with fox-tail and red clover. The sheep 

 would not touch the sweet-scented vernal, but kept constantly upon the fox-tail 

 The writer of this, saw the field when the grasses were in the highest state 

 of perfection: and hardly any thing could be more satisfactory. Equal quanti- 

 ties of the seeds of white clover, were sown with each of the grasses, but from 

 the dwarf nature of the sweet-scented venial grais, the clover mixed with it 

 had attained to greater luxuriance, than that mixed with the meadow fox-tail. 



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