SHEEP HUSBANDRY IN THE SOUTH. 189 



from the effects of wet and cold ; the fleece averaging about 3^ lbs. Formerly the wool was 

 extensively employed for making cloths", but having given place to the finer Saxony wools, 

 it has sunk in price, and been confined to combing purposes. It has thus become altogether 

 a secondary coiisidei'ation." . , . 



If Mr. Spooner is uot made to say that the wool is " fine" by an omis- 

 sion of quahfying words, or some other misprint, his ideas o? fineness must 

 be singular indeed ! The South-Down wool, rejected for carding pur- 

 poses, is several shades finer than the Cheviot ! The latter is of about the 

 quality of Leicester, the number of serrations about the same, and, says 

 Mr. Youatt, speaking of the microscopic appearance of the wool, " the 

 derivation of the breed (from the Leicester) is well illustrated by the 

 formation of the fibre." 



Mr. John Varley, manufacturer, of Stanningley, near Leeds, thus testi- 

 fied before the Lords' Committee :* 



" I atti-ibute the low price of Cheviot wool to deterioi-ation ; it is deteriorated very much 

 in point of hair ; it was formerly the fashion of the day for Cheviot wool to be worn as cloth ; 



it is not the fashion nov/. It is not fit to make fine cloths, as it was then The wool 



is grown coarser and longer, and only fit to make low coatuigs and flushings." 



This is confirmed by the testimony of other witnesses before the Com- 

 mittee; and Mr. Youatt on the same subject remarks,! "that the wool is 

 inferior to the South-Down." 



Broad-tailed Asiatic and African* Sheep. — I allude to the Broad- 

 tailed race of sheep, not from any high estimate which I place upon their 

 value, but because they constitute one of the breeds now existing in a 

 state of purity in the United States. 



Some " Tunisian Mountain Sheep " were received by Col. Pickerino- 

 when abroad, and were distributed by him in Pennsylvania.^ They are 

 highly spoken of by Col. Powell as a cross with the Dishley and South- 

 Down. They have, I believe, long since become extinct. 



It was Commodore Porter, I think, who, you informed me, sent home 

 some of the Broad-tailed sheep of Asia, obtained from Smyrna, pure- 

 blooded descendants of which yet exist in South Carolina.|| I have care- 

 fully examined the specimens of wool of the full blood and the grades of 

 this variety forwarded by you. No. 3, take7i from the skin of a full-blood, 

 is S inches long, pure white, consisting of coarse hairs, uneven in their 

 length and diameter — the same hair of uneven diameter in different parts 

 of it, and the whole intermixed for about 4 inches from the roots, with a 

 fine, downy or cottony wool. No. 2, about of inches long from the side 

 of a three-fourths blood ram, is much evener in quality, with no hairs as 

 coarse or wool as fine as in No. 3. It contains some jarr, or short, sharp- 

 pointed hairs, and is a dry, and, I should judge, rather imworkable wool, 

 not tcell adapted to either carding or combing. No. 1, fi-om thigh of same 

 animal, is 8 inches long, resembles No. 3, but not so great a distinction 

 between the hair and the wool. No. 4, from a three-fourths blood 4-year- 

 old ewe, is about 2 inches long, contains a few colored hairs, resembles 

 No. 2, but is somewhat coarser. All those samples are destitute of yolk, 

 and apparently c(mie from loose, light, dry, open fleeces. They do not 

 strike me as wools which could be as profitably cultivated as many others, 

 for any objects or under any circumstances. 



If the object is mutton instead of wool, it seems to me that a better se- 

 lection can be made, from some of the English breeds — which intermino-le 



* Bwchoff, vol ii , p. 144. Mr. Youatt quotes the substance of the above, and fully sustains Mr. Varlev's 

 views. t Q. v., p. Sw."). ' 



J .See Essay on Various Breeds of Sheep, by Coi. John Hare Powell, published in the Memoirs of thp 

 Board of Agriculture of the State of New- York, vol. iii., p. 377, (1^26.) 



II In Letter Vth I inadvertently spoke of these as a large breed of sheep. They arc not above medium 

 size, or rather, may be said to be a smallish race. 

 (381) 



