28 RURAL ECONOMY OF ENGLAND. 



fit which English agriculture derives from its sheep. It 

 must not be forgotten that this valuable animal not only 

 gives its meat and wool to the farmer, but further en- 

 riches him by its manure; and all this return is obtained, 

 while ameliorating the soil which produces it. This is in 

 some measure the perfection of rural economy. 



If we now extend our view beyond Europe to the 

 British colonies, we there find the rearing of sheep carried 

 on with a marked predilection for the example set by the 

 mother country. The population there being fewer and 

 more scattered, and wealth consisting more particularly 

 in exports, wool, and not meat, becomes the object of pro- 

 duction. At the very time when England, was getting quit 

 of her merinos, she was importing them into her colonies. 

 At the antipodes are found uninhabited regions of bound- 

 less extent, admirably suited to the Spanish race. That 

 breed is there extensively propagated, and a new world 

 has been created ; magnificent towns have sprung up, as 

 if by enchantment, upon these desert lands. Thither the 

 stream of British emigration flows in a continuous tide ; 

 and yet it is a feeble animal the sheep which produces 

 all these wonders. At one time the people of England 



though we believe the former, as adopted by our author, will be found nearest 

 the truth. With regard to wool, again, we feel inclined to adopt a much higher 

 superiority for England even than that above set down ; for supposing the num- 

 bers of sheep in France and the British Isles to be alike, the greater size and 

 nature of the wool of the majority of the sheep of the latter country may fairly 

 be assumed as producing a fleece nearly twice the weight of the merinos'of France. 

 Upon the whole, then, we have no doubt, upon this same number of sheep said to 

 be produced in France and England, the latter will yield upon an average fifty 

 per cent greater weight of wool. This, allowing for the greater number pre- 

 sumed to be clipped in France from the smaller proportionate number slaughtered, 

 as we have seen and assuming, as we are bound to do, a less price for the coarser 

 variety grown here may be held as showing the relative value of the wool of the 

 two countries to be as sixty to seventy-two, thus giving a still more favourable 

 result for Great Britain. We should not be surprised that Professor Low's esti- 

 mate in this matter will be found to come nearest the truth. J. D. 



