SHEEP HUSBANDRY IN THE SOUTH. 23 



LETTER 11. 



EFFECT OF CLIMATE, CONTINUED, 



TUhci of Climate on quality of Wool-.-Wai-mth of Climate renders Wool coarser— Reasons.. .Effect irf 

 Herbage... Opinions of Youatt — Doctor Parry— English Staplers— Writer. ..Can the tendency to gn>w 

 •oarser be resisted ?. . .Opinions of Youatt— Lasteyrie— Mr. Lawrence. . . Experiment in Australia— Cape o< 

 Good Hope— South of Illinois— Kentucky— Tennessee— Mississippi— New-York. ..Warm Climates rendej 

 Wools softer and longer, thus adding materially to their value. ..Proved to be the case in Australia. . .Tea- 

 tiiHony of English Wool-factors and Staplers. ..Same effect produced in the United States... Testimony 

 ct Mr. CockrilL 



Dear Sir : We come now to discuss the effect of Climate on the quality 

 of M^oox. 



There can be but little doubt, other things being equal, that the pelage 

 of the Sheep and some other animals, becomes finer in cold climates and 

 coarser in warm ones. This is usually attributed, by theoretical writers, 

 to the effect of cold and heat in contracting or expanding the pores. This 

 may have some effect, but to suppose that the delicate tissues of the skin 

 can act, to any great extent, mechanically, in compressing the harder and 

 highly elastic ones of the hair or wool, or compel their attenuation so aa 

 to permit their escape through diminished apertures, like the process of 

 wire drawing, is, it seems to me, to assume that matter acts contrary to 

 its ordinary laws. I am rather disposed to look for the causes of thia 

 phenomenon, in the amount and quality of the nutriment received by the 

 animal. It was stated, in my preceding letter, that warm climates, by 

 aflTording succulent herbage during a greater portion of the year, maintain 

 in gi-eater activity those secretions which form wool, and thus increase the 

 quantity or weight of the fleece. The weight is inci-eased by increasing 

 the length and thickness of the separate fibres, just as plants put forth 

 longer and thicker stems on rich soils than on poor ones. 



Mr. Youatt, in his excellent and much quoted work on Sheep, after dis- 

 cussing and admitting, to a certain extent, the influence of warm temper- 

 atures in rendering wool coarser, says : 



" Pasture has a far greater influence on the fineness of the fleece. The staple of the wool, 

 like every other part of the sheep, must increase in length or in bulk when the animal has 

 a superabundance of nutriment ; and, on the other hand, the secretion which forms the wool 

 must decrease like every other, when sufficient nourishment i&-not aff"orded. When little 

 cold has been e.xperienced in the winter, and vegetation has been scarcely checked, the 

 •heep peld an abimdant crop of wool, but the fleece is perceptibly coarser as well as 

 heavier. When frost has been severe and the ground long covered with snow — if the flock 

 has been fairly supplied with nutriment, although the fleece may have lost a little in weight, 

 it will have acquired a superior degree of fineness and a proportionate increase of value. 

 Ahould, however, the sheep have been neglected and starved during this prolongation of 

 cold weather, the fleece as well as the carcass is thinner ; and although it may have pre- 

 ■erved its smallness of filament, it has lost m weight and strength and usefulness. I'heaa 

 ■re self-eN-ident facts, and need not be enforced by any labored argument."* 



Doct, Parry, a correct and able English writer, remarks : 



" Sheep breeders have obser\'ed a sort of gross connecticm between the food and quality 

 rf the fleece. . . . The fineness of a sheep s fleece of a given breed is, within certain 

 Uinits, inversely as its fatness, and perhaps also (althouHh I am not certain on this point) aa 

 toe quickness vdth which it grows fat. A sheep which is fat has usually comparatively 

 coarse w^-oi, and one which is lean, either fi-om want of food or disease, has the finest wool; 

 md the veij' same sheep may at ditTerent times, according to these circujustances, batv 

 fleeces of all tli.. ^termt^liate qualities from extreme fineness to comparative coarseneM.' 



• YroAtt :nShe«p,p "^O 



