100 MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



machinery, without feeling it was designed by the God of Nature to become, 

 in process of time — the fullness of Avhich is now — a Avool-growing and wool- 

 manufacturing country. Its numerous cascades seem audibly to invoke the 

 genius and enterprise of such men as EUicott and Lawrence and Pratt to turn 

 them to useful account ; but here liave they gone for ages as still they go — leap- 

 ing from rock to rock, descending mile after mile, as much unheeded by man 

 as by the deer that roams or the Avolf that prowls in the neighboring mountains. 

 " The Soutiierner," at Piichmond, a vigorous and indomitable advocate of a self- 

 sustaining policy for the State — urging the development and use of her own rich, 

 resources for her own benctit — computes the cost of the imported articles from 

 the North annually for each county in the Southern States at $80,000. That 

 would make for Northern manufactures, for Fauquier, Culpeper and P.appahan- 

 nock $240,000 a year, or more ihan $6 a head for every man, woman, and child 

 • — black and white. But I need not dwell on the adaptation of this reason to 

 Sheep Husbandry, and especially to its fitness for raising the finest Wool, for 

 which 1 see fifty cents have been lately offered and refused at Rochester, New- 

 York. I would not dare attempt to poach on this manor of your very able and 

 accomplished correspondent, Mr. Randall of that State, to whom the most intel- 

 ligent southern cultivators I have met with acknov/ledge themselves to be 

 greatly indebted for his comprehensive and skillful illustrations of that subject. 



There are no two companions more congenial — none that lounge through the 

 world together in greater harmony, than Ignorance and Indolence. What the 

 one says, the other will swear to, and they have united in the dogma that this 

 climate is unsuitcd to the growth of fine Wool — and that as for Manufactories, 

 they must ever be excluded for want of capital and suitable operatives. I will 

 not stop here to discuss either of these convenient excuses, my purpose being 

 nerelv to give a sort of runningj bird's-eye view of the agricultural economy and 

 resources as I go along ; but from this purpose permit me so I'ar to depart as to 

 make, in reference to the appropriateness of this high and dry climate for grow- 

 ing the finest Wool, a single quotation from an elaborate examination into the 

 industrial resources of England, the greatest wool manufacturing power in 

 the world — particularly as to her capability to grow line Wool. It will be seen 

 how, nevertheless, her climate — almost the opposite to that of Virginia — cuts 

 her off from self-supply. The reader will not fail to note how remarkable is the 

 absence in Western Virginia of the very impediments that preclude the growth 

 of this great staple of British Industry : 



" There are two kinds of woolen goods which are formed by different modes of manu- 

 facture ; and these, again, are founded on essential differences in the structure of wool. 

 Worsted goods are formed of wool, tho fabrics of which are long, and have litde twist. In 

 such goods the weh is formed only as the web of cotton or linen goods, by the opposition of 

 the fibres or threads alternately crossing and panillel. But in wliat are properly woolen 

 goods, as in broadcloths, after tire web has been so formed, it is snbjected to a violent beat- 

 ing in the tucking or fulling mill, during which the cloth shrinks very much in length and 

 Ijreadth, but thickens, and tlie individual threads of the web so mix in with each other that 

 they cannot be distinguished until it is much worn and becomes threadbare. Now for such 

 goods a different kind of wool must be taken than for worsted goods. The fabric must be 

 ehort and more twisted. These varieties of wool are known as short and long stapled. Tlie 

 cause of this difference is that each fibre of wool consists of a series of joints, and at each 

 joint there are a set of projections, like the barb of a fish-hook. In long-stapled wool tliese 

 joints are few and very weak — in short-sUipled wool they are numerous and strong. If a 

 iiandfuU of the latter be worked in the hands, th'^ fibres will gi-adu;dly interlace, and by these 

 barbs catching into each other will lock into a kind of web, quite independent of spinning 

 and weaving ; they will form felt. It is in tliis way that tlie bodies of hats are made, as all 

 furs possess the same property. Hence the making of cloth requires the spinning and 

 weaving of the web in the first instance, and the subsequent partial felting of the fibres in 

 the tucking or fulling mill. 



" I notice these jiarticulars, as the climate and vegetation of a country exercise remark.i 

 ble intluence on the staple and structure of the wool which the sheep produce, and thus, 

 finally, on the dcscriptitui of manufactured goods. In moist, cold climates — such as that of 

 the I3riti.-!h Islands — the natural wool of the adult sheep is universally loug-slfii'lsd and unfit 

 fiur felling, while in dry climates with hot summers the wool is short-stapled and felts 

 Btroiigly. The wool produced not merely in Ireland, but in England also, is tlius exclu- 

 sively adapted for the worsted trade; and that of Ireland being of an excellent quality of 

 fibre, Is much sought after for the finer kinds of worsted. For woolen cloths and similar 



C-Ml) 



