NATURE OF WOOL. 231 



suit of such permanent nations as were formed out of the 

 remnants of governments which escaped extermination, and 

 an indispensable accompaniment of the gradually improving 

 civilized agriculture. 



It may be easily thought that the most powerful com- 

 munities settled as permanent nations, gradually improve.! 

 their flocks until in more recent times friendly governments 

 as an indication of good will presented selected flocks 

 to others, who received these gifts with avidity and exer- 

 cised great care to distribute them among the leading own- 

 ers of the cultivated lands. It was in this way that the best 

 sheep of Spain, where it seems that the flocks had been 

 most carefully preserved and improved, were distributed 

 and became the progeinitors of such breeds as our present 

 improved Merinos, Cotswolds and Southdowns, which are 

 really the original ancestors of all our present existing varie- 

 ties. 



Still wool was the main object of solicitude, and leading 

 breeders gave the closest attention to the improvement of 

 sheep as wool producers. The rest is a matter of modern 

 history, and after all we are still at work in the same line, 

 and shall doubtless always be so, for we cannot realize any 

 such thought that the world can ever exist as the home 

 of civilized communities without the sheep as one, if not the 

 first of agricultural pursuits. 



These being the facts before us, it is necessarily the busi- 

 ness of the shepherd to give his attention to the best man- 

 agement of his flocks for the wool product, to the practical 

 understanding of the character of this staple, and the best 

 means of preserving its quality amd increasing its value 

 by the most judicious culture of the sheep. 



THE NATURE OF WOOL. 



The chief value of wool depends on its peculiar char- 

 acter, and its adaptation to the various processes of manu- 

 facture; for its usefulness in this respect depends on its 

 peculiar structure. 



A fiber of wool, when examined under a powerful micro- 

 scope, is seen to consist of three parts: first, a central core 

 consisting of what is termed medullary substance. This is 

 a sort of fatty matter akin to (he marrow of a bone, and 



