16 RURAL ECONOMY OF ENGLAND. 



To this numerical difference has to be added a no less 

 important difference in the quality. 



For a century past, independently of previous progress, 

 which had been greater in England than with us, the 

 two countries have pursued two opposite objects in the 

 rearing of their flocks. In France wool has been looked 

 upon as the principal product, and meat the accessory ; 

 in England, on the contrary, the wool has been looked 

 upon as the accessory, and meat the chief production. 

 From this simple distinction, which at first sight appears 

 unimportant, arise differences in results which count by 

 hundreds of millions of francs. 



The efforts which France has made during the last 

 eighty years to improve the race of sheep may be summed 

 up almost entirely in the introduction of merinos. Spain 

 formerly was the sole possessor of this superior breed, 

 formed by slow degrees upon the immense table-land of 

 Castile. The reputation of Spanish wools induced many 

 other nations of Europe, especially Saxony, to try the 

 importation of the breed. This experiment having suc- 

 ceeded, France also desired to attempt it, and that excel- 

 lent prince, Louis XVI., who gave the impetus to all the 

 progress since realised, solicited and obtained from the 

 King of Spain a Spanish flock for his farm of Eambouillet. 

 This flock, improved, and to a certain extent remodelled 

 by attentive care, is the stock from which almost all the 

 merinos in France are derived. Two other sub-races, 

 also of Spanish origin, those of Perpignan and Naz, have 

 been surpassed by this one. 



The French proprietors and farmers hesitated very 

 much at first to adopt this innovation, and in conse- 

 quence of the Eevolution many years elapsed before any 

 important results were obtained. It was scarcely before 

 the establishment of the Empire that the advantages of 



