26 FINE WOOL SHEEP HUSBANDRY. 
an inch and a half in length on the back and sides, 
shorter on the belly, and formed a considerably less 
compact mass than that of the Spanish Merino. In 
the best sheep, the surface of the fleece was smooth 
and even (as if it had been cut off at a uniform 
length), and it broke into masses of some size; but 
in inferior animals the wool grew in small discon- 
nected tufts, which ended in poents externally ; these 
fell apart on the shoulder and along the back, and in 
some instances partly hung down like hair or Leices- 
ter wool, instead of standing at right angles to the 
surface. The last indicated extreme thinness of fleece. 
When to this was added a gauzy, half-peeled nose and 
ear—an ear as thin and almost as transparent as 
parchment—a pale skin, a carcass without depth and 
about six inches thick, a camel-shaped neck, and long 
spider legs, the “lower deep” of debility and de- 
generacy was reached. 
But there was an atoning beauty about the wool of 
the Saxon which it was hard to resist. It flashed with 
such a gem-like lustre; it was so beautifully fine and 
even; it had such an exquisite downiness of touch, 
that all other wool seemed base by the side of it. I 
have seen it so pliant, that a lock of it held upright 
by the outer end, between a thumb and finger, and 
gently played up and down, would bend and dance 
like a plume. 
According to Youatt’s measurements, the fibre was 
about sl, of an inch in diameter; but he did not ob- 
tain fine specimens of the wool. 
This variety had “ touched bottom” in physical de- 
generacy at the period of its importation to the United 
States, and a reaction was commencing in breeding. 
