Merino.Ryeland Breed of Sheep. 453 



valuable to the manufacturer. This circumstance ought certainly to add somewhat 

 to the price of the Merino Ryeland wool ; and, if no addition be actually on that 

 account made, should render the wool more desirable to the clothier. * 



Upon the principles which I have already laid down, there can be no difficulty in 

 assigning the causes of this superiority. The Merino sheep in Spain remain at rest 

 during a certain time in the rich valiies ; and, from this luxuriance of food, become 

 tolerably fat. They are then reduced in flesh by a long journey to the mountains, 

 vhere they rest, again increase in obesity, and are once more reduced by travelling 

 to be again fattened by repose among the rich herbage of the lowlands. These 

 opposite states of rest and motion, accompanied as they are with a corresponding 

 degree of nutrition, must be very unfavourable to the equal growth of the wool, 

 and, therefore, to the tenacity and uniform strength of the filament ; while, on the 

 other hand, a well-managed flock of sheep in this country, kept in nearly an equal 

 state of exercise and flesh during different seasons of the year, must furnish wool of 

 more uniform strength, and therefore less subject to waste in the different pro- 

 cesses of the manufacture. Add to this the superior flexibility and inelasticity of 

 the Merino-Ryeland wool ; and, farther, that our wools are not as yet adulterated 

 by being mixed with that of either diseased or dead sheep, or of lambs, like those 

 of Spain. 



1 cannot tell how far the clothiers will agree with me, when I urge that a still 

 greater part of this advantage may, probably, be derived from a superior leogth of 

 staple in the Merino-Ryeland wool. The benefit of this length will readily be 

 allowed in casimir, because it admits of finer spinning, which much contributes to 

 the thinness, closeness, and fineness of that fabric ; and even in broadcloth it must 

 allow the filaments to be more intimately twisted, and therefore render them less 

 liable to fall out from any subsequent violence. Some persons have, indeed, con. 

 tended, that only the ends of the filaments are drawn out to supply the pile on the 

 face of the cloth ; and, therefore, that a longer filament is disadvantageous, by not 

 furnishing a sufficient number of ends for this purpose. To this reasoning I cannot 

 agree. I can never believe that the rude hooks of the teazle, impelled by a strong 

 force, should, by a sort of living power, select only the natural extremities of the 



• This advantage must, however, be lost:, when the wool is become much finer in the filament, 

 and consequently weaker, than the best Spanish ; an evil soon remedied by the introduction of -i. 

 somewhat coarsLT rain. 



