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XIII. — On the various Breeds of Sheep in Great Britain, especially 
with reference to the Character and Value of their Wool. By 
John Wilson, Professor of Agriculture in the University of 
Edinburgh. 
The classification of the various breeds of sheep of this country 
is usually determined by the relative characters of their fleeces, 
these characters rendering the fleeces of each division respect- 
ively more or less applicable to the same purposes. Thus 
we have two well-marked classes — the " long-woollcd " and the 
short-icoolled,^' and a third, whose characters are not so definite 
as to partake entirely of either, to which the term " intermediate " 
may be applied. Of the /onff-ioooUed^^ we may take the 
Lincoln, the Leicester, and the Cotswold, as the more prominent 
types ; of the " intermediate " we may take the Dorset, the Cheviot, 
and the Radnor breeds ; and of the " short-woolled" division the 
Downs, the Merino, the Welsh, and the Shetland are perhaps 
the best examples. 
As the industrial application of these different wools will be 
more fully considered in the second division of the subject, I will 
here confine myself to a general statement of their uses. The 
" long-wools " are used entirely for the various kinds of worsted 
manufactures, the Lincoln and other glossy wools being used 
for lustre-goods, &c. ; wliile the Romney Marsh and some of the 
Irish are in great demand in the French market for similar pur- 
poses. The " intermediate " are almost all used for invested 
yarns ; where the character, however of the wool is kempy (as 
in some of the Scotch) they are found to be more suitable for 
low woollen goods, as carpets, blankets, hosieries, &c. The 
" short-wools " are used chiefly for woollen purposes, the longer 
portions of the fleece being separated and used for worsted yarns 
and in the manufacture of stuff goods. The two first classes may 
be termed " combing'' wools, and the last class as "carding" wools. 
In the following outlines of our different native breeds I have 
endeavoured to give, in a condensed form, the general physical 
characteristics and agricultural values of each, confining my 
observations, save as regards a few occasional references, to the 
pure breeds, as the limits of my paper would not permit me to 
do justice to the various crosses between them which are every 
year increasing in importance both in an industrial and in a 
more strictly agricultural sense.* 
* The materials from which these sketches of our native breeds of sheep have 
been drawn, were for the most part kindly furnished to me by the breeders to 
whom on a recent occasion I applied (on behalf of the Board of Trade) for speci- 
men fleeces of their respective flocks. For the information in reference to the 
commercial application and value of the difierent wools, I am indebted to Mr. 
John Hubbard of Leeds. — J, W. 
