196 FINE WOOL SIEEP HUSBANDRY. 
Fineness. The grower knows his market, and 
must produce an article adapted to it. In the Ameri- 
can market there is a much larger demand for medium 
than fine wools, and the former commands much the 
best price in proportion to cost of production. It is 
to be hoped, however, that the demand for fine wools 
will increase. Whatever the quality aimed at, it 
should be the same throughout the flock so far as it is 
practicable. 
Evenness. Evenness of quality in every part of the 
fleece, so far as this can be attained, is one of the first 
points of a well bred sheep. Jar is very objection- 
able, but not as much so as what the Germans term 
dog’s hair—hair growing out through the wvol on the 
thighs, the edges of the neck folds, about the roots of 
the horn in rams,* or standing scattered here and 
there through the fleece or inside the legs. This indi- 
cates bad blood or a defective course of breeding. 
Trueness and Soundness. Wool should be of equal 
diameter from the root to the point of the fibre. It 
should especially be free from any finer and weaker 
spot or “joint” in it, occasioned by a temporary ill- 
ness or other low state of the animal. This can often 
be detected by the naked eye, and always by pulling 
the fibre. Wool is said to be sound, where it is strong 
and elastic. 
Pliancy and Sofiness are considerations of the first 
importance, not only as indicia of other qualities, but 
intrinsically. If we can suppose two lots of wool 
exactly to resemble each other in every other particu- 
* When the back of a ram’s head has been severely bruised in 
fighting, hair sometimes succeeds to the origmal wool, and offers no 
proof of bad breeding. 
