FINE WOOL SUECP HUSBANDRY. 127 
lar, but that under the same treatment one is com- 
paratively stiff and hard to the touch, while the other 
has a silky pliancy and softness, the latter is decidedly 
the most valuable, because it will produce manufac- 
tured articles far superior in beauty and for actual 
use. But in point of fact, full blood wool is almost 
invariably soft in proportion to its fineness, and is al- 
ways so in proportion to its marketable value, A 
practised buyer can decide on that value in the dark. 
Style is, perhaps, a word which has rather vague 
boundaries to its meaning; but it includes that com- 
bination of useful and showy properties which give 
value to the choicest wool, viz: fineness, clearness of 
color, lustre, uniformity and beauty of curving, and 
that peculiar mode of opening on the body, or disposi- 
tion of the fibres in the sheared fleece, which indicate 
the last extreme of pliancy and softness. These quali- 
ties, in combination, present an appearance which at 
once, without a sufficiently close inspection to discover 
the separate fibres, or even without a touch of the 
hand, point out the best fleece in the pile. 
Yolk. This, in its most usual form, is a semi-flnid, 
unctuous secretion from the skin, found in the wool 
of various breeds of sheep, and particularly in that of 
the Merino. Sometimes there is only enough of it to 
lubricate and make a shining coating on every fibre. 
In others, it appears additionally in little brilliant 
globules among the fibres. In others still, it forms a 
separate, visible and abundant mass in the lower part 
of the wool. In some instances it is as thin as the 
inost delicate oil; in others, pasty and viscid; in 
others it has the spissitude of soft wax, and appears in 
particles or even in concretions of considerable size 
