Essay on Sheep. 129 



the best judges, been pronounced superior to 

 any they had examined; yet his wool is cer- 

 tainly not better than that of the lamb I speak 

 of; and this is the more extraordinary, as the 

 Merino lamb's fleece is never so fine as his sub* 

 sequent growth. 



The account I have already given of the 

 flock at Rambouillet shows, that instead of de- 

 generating they have greatly improved in the 

 fineness of their fleeces. Dr. Parry, who has 

 lately written a treatise on the Merino sheep in 

 England, acknowledges that the wool of the 

 Rambouillet flock is finer than that imported 

 from Spain, and speaks of this flock in the 

 highest terms of admiration: he also adds, that 

 the flock of Lord Somervile, and of his Britan- 

 nic Majesty, as well as his own flock of Meri- 

 noes in the fourth generation (fifteen-sixteenths), 

 are finer than the wool brought from Spain to 

 England, and proves it by showing that it re- 

 quires two pounds of imported wool to make 

 one yard of the finest British broadcloth, and 

 that he has made from his Merinoes upwards 

 of twenty-six and a half yards from forty-two 

 pounds. This is something more than one 

 pound nine ounces to the yard. If I was to 

 determine the fineness of my flock by the same 

 rule, I should exceed both, since the same 



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