ESSEX SOCIETY. 75 



imports more coarse wool than fine. The attention of wool- 

 growers has been directed chiefly to the culture oi fine ivool ; 

 and although we have, after all, comparatively but little of the 

 very finest, we have almost as little of the wool suitable for 

 carpeting. Hence it follows, that our wool intended for sale, 

 should be of the coarse kinds, and these we find upon the 

 Leicester sheep. A modified quality may be obtained for 

 common family use by a mixture with the South Down ; indeed 

 some extensive wool-growers prefer this for every reason. 



The pure Leicesters shear from six to eight pounds a year, 

 and will always sell at the carpet mills. 



Future Sheep Husbandry in our County. 



As wool must be in some demand, and good mutton and 

 lamb in probably great demand, I look forward to a large in- 

 crease of sheep, as an event not very distant. By the returns 

 of the marshals, as they were published in the Statistical Ta- 

 bles for 1845, there were at that time but four thousand eight 

 hundred and ninety-two sheep in the county,* yielding four- 

 teen thousand three hundred and fourty-two pounds of wool. 

 In the same year, there were twenty-one thousand one hun- 

 dred and sixty-six neat cattle kept in the county. Now if the 

 sober judgment of the late Mr. Newhall, before quoted, was 

 correct, there might have been as many sheep pastured, as that 

 number of neat cattle, without injury to them, viz., twenty-one 

 thousand one hundred and sixty-six, instead of the four thousand 

 eight hundred and ninety-two actually kept, and yielding sixty 

 thousand pounds of wool. At thirty-five cents per pound, 

 this wool would have been worth ^21,000, instead of $5,019, 

 the actual value. I have proceeded thus far upon the suppo- 

 sition that there should be no reduction in the number of neat 

 cattle kept. But is it clear that the keeping of neat cattle is 

 always at the greatest profit? Let us compare the keeping of 

 cows and sheep, for a moment. 



A given pasture will carry ten cows. These cows may on 

 an average yield six pounds of butter a week, for six months, 

 without meal or other extra keep. At twenty-three cents per 

 pound this will, for the ten cows, amount in six months to 



* In 1837; the number was 5,837, showing a decrease of 9i5 in eight years. 



