THE CULTIVATOR. 
82 
slit, being careful not to wound the cambium beneath it. The bark be* 
ing thus raised for the admission of the bud, slip'it directly down until 
the top of the shield comes just below the first made transverse cut, and 
enters into its place. The whole may now be bound round with bass 
or woollen yarn, from the bottom of the slit to the footstalk of the leaf, 
and on it a little to press the bud close to the stalk. In three or four 
weeks the bandages may be removed. In the spring, at the rising of 
the sap, it may be headed down. The sprouts must be rubbed off until 
the buds starts. 
As a considerable time elapses after heading down before the bud 
starts, during which the exposure of the crown, and particularly when 
large, frequently occasions gangrene, very injurious to the tree, hence 
I recommend that the stock be cut off, say a hands breadth above 
the bud 5 these may be shortened in June, within an inch or less 
of the bud ; let this not be neglected. If the stump be kept alive until 
the bud grows of a size large enough to keep up a free circulation of 
sap, all is safe, and the bud itself adheres in its new place with as much 
life as it grew on its parent twig, and when inserted on stocks not too 
large, and judiciously managed, makes a wound incomparably less 
than any other mode of grafting. The proper scions for obtaining buds 
from, are the young thrifty shoots at the extremities of the branches 
of a young and thirty tree. If the earth has been kept loose about it, 
so much the better. I here repeat your observation, that “ both the 
stock and the scion should be in a state of active growth, and the more 
vigorous the better, when the process of budding is performed.” The 
buds to be prepared are the most prominent; small sunken buds are 
slow to vegetate. Let the twigs be divested of their leaves, but not of 
their leaf stocks. Whilst using keep them constantly moistened or im¬ 
mersed in water, at least their but ends. The operation may be per¬ 
formed very well with a pen-knile of the ordinary kind, the blade should 
be thin and keen and the point sharp. 
Apple trees may be budded from the 20th of June until the 20th of 
September; but I should judge from the 10th of August to the 10th of 
September, the best time. 
I have now a lot of trees, some of which were grafted and some bud¬ 
ded on stocks of the same age and similar; on measuring them this day 
(28th of June) a majority of the budded trees exceeded two feet, and 
some near three feet, and one over three feet—whereas, of the grafted, 
one alone come up to two feet. I have made similar experiments at dif¬ 
ferent times, and those budded have almost invariably excelled. 
Some object to budded trees on the ground that they will not bear as 
early by two or three years, as grafted ones. If such be the fact, 1 
should suspect the bearing to be premature, and might be occasioned 
by nursery transplanting, winter grafting, &c. Whereas, budding to 
be successful, must necessarily be performed in fixed, and I may almost 
say, vigorous stocks. Premature bearing is the forerunner of prema¬ 
ture decay. 
A few remarks on pruning and transplanting will close this part of 
the subject, but which, for want of time, I reserve for a future number. 
SOLOMON PHILLIPS, Jr. 
Brownsville, Fayette Co. Pa. July, 1836. 
P. S. I would be gratified by seeing something in the Cultivator about 
the culture of peach trees. 
Sheep Husbandry. 
THE SHEEP .—(Continued from page 71.) 
THE PROPERTIES OF WOOL. 
A consideration of the most important properties of wool, now taken 
in a very general way, and to be hereafter applied to the different breeds 
of sheep, cannot be better introduced than in the words of one to whom 
the agriculturist, whatever department of husbandry may chiefly oc¬ 
cupy his attention, is much indebted. He is speaking of the size of the 
fibre, or the fineness or coarseness of wool. “ Fine and coarse,” says 
he, “are but vague and general descriptions of wool; all fine fleeces 
have some coarse wool, and all coarse fleeces some fine. I shall en¬ 
deavor, for the information of my readers, to distinguish the various 
qualities of wool in the order in which ihey are esteemed and prefer¬ 
red by the manufacturer. First, fineness with close ground, that is, 
thick-matted ground. Second, pureness. Third, straight-haired when 
broken by drawing. Fourth, elasticity, rising after compression in the 
hand. Fifth, staple not too long. Sixth, colour. Seventh, what coarse 
is in it to be very coarse. Eighth, tenacity. Ninth, not much pitch- 
mark: but this is no other disadvantage than the loss of weight in 
scouring. 
“The bad or disagreeable properties are—thin, grounded, toppy, 
curly-haired, and, if in a sorted state, little in it that is very fine; a 
tender staple, no elasticity, many dead white hairs, very yolky. Those 
who buy wool for combing and other light goods that do not want mil¬ 
ling, wish to find length of staple, fineness of hair, whiteness, tena¬ 
city, pureness, elasticity, and not too many pitch-marks.” These sup¬ 
posed good and bad qualities will not be taken in the order here enume¬ 
rated, for the propriety of some of them may admit of doubt; few, 
however, will be entirely omitted. 
FINENESS. 
That property which first attracts attention, and which is of greater 
importance than any other, is the fineness of the pile—the quantity of 
fine wool which a fleece yields, and the degree of that fineness. Of 
the absolute fineness little can be said. It varies to a very considera¬ 
ble degree in different parts of the same fleece, and the diameter of the 
same fibre is often exceedingly different at the extremity and the centre. 
The micrometer has sometimes indicated that the diameter of the for¬ 
mer is five times as much as that of the latter; and consequently, that 
a given length of pile taken from the extremity would weigh twenty- 
five times as much as the same length taken from the centre and cleansed 
from all yolk and grease. 
That fibre may be considered as coarse whose diameter is more than 
the five-hundredth part of an inch; in some of the most valuable sam¬ 
ples of Saxony wool it has not exceeded the nine-hundredth part of an 
inch; yet in some animals, but whose wool has not yet been used for 
manufacturing purposes, it is less than one-twelve-liundredth part of an 
inch. 
The fineness of the wool differs greatly on the different parts of the 
sheep. That running down the side of the neck and covering the shoul¬ 
ders, the ribs, and the back, is the finest; the next covers the superior 
part of the legs and the thighs, and extends up to nearly the haunch 
and the tail; and a still inferior portion runs along the upper part of 
the neck, the throat, the breast, the belly and lower part of the legs. 
There is considerable variation in this respect in different breeds, and 
in individuals of the same breed; and, although a fleece, taken gene¬ 
rally, may be said to be adapted to a particular use, yet a portion of 
it may be employed in the manufacture of a much more valuable arti¬ 
cle; and at the same lime a greater quantity will be thrown aside as 
not sufficiently fine for the originally intended purpose. 
THE WOOLSTAPLER. 
This is the business of the woolstaplcr,—the middleman between the 
breeder and the manufacturer. He purchases the fleece, and occasion¬ 
ally sells it in the same state, but oftener assorts it; dividing it into dif¬ 
ferent parcels, according to their degree of fineness principally, or the 
possession of some property,,which fits it for a certain manufacture. 
The sorter, who ought to have delicate sense of touch and a quick eye, 
has several baskets around him, distinguished, at least in the mind’s 
eye, by a certain number according to the fineness of the staple, and 
into which, with a rapidity that would surprise the inexperienced ob¬ 
server, and with an accuracy that can seldom be disputed, he divides 
the wool. There are seldom fewer than six divisions, and sometimes 
more than double that number, according to the quality of the fleece, 
or the expected demand for wools of a certain kind. The manufacturer, 
who knows precisely what wool will suit his purpose, and to whom the 
remainder would be useless, is thus enabled to obtain from the stapler, 
without trouble or risk, the quantity and the sort that he requires. 
The short wool fleeces are usually distributed into ten parcels. The 
picklock —as its name, the picked locks, would imply—is the very 
best and choicest wool of the kind, and many fleeces of inferior wool 
are sometimes assorted before any great quantity is thrown into 
this basket. The prime, an excellent wool, and but in a slight degree 
inferior to the first. The two next divisions, the choice and the super, 
are good wools, but the fineness or the trueness of the staple gradually 
decreasing. The greater part of a good Down fleece would, on assort¬ 
ment, be chiefly thrown into one or the other of these compartments, 
but some proportion even of the best would find its way into the bas¬ 
kets yet to be mentioned. The head, this title either indicates the part 
of the sheep whence the wool is usually procured, or that it is at the 
head of the inferior sorts. The sixth division is— the downrights, an 
honest, sound wool; but that is all that can be said about it. Next 
comes the seconds —the best of the wool from the throat or breast. The 
eighth is— the abb, a disputed and unintelligible term, meaning a still 
inferior wool. The livery —principally the skirtings and edgings, and 
the short.coarse or breech wool, that which comes from the breech of 
the animal. 
THE INFLUENCE OF TEMPERATURE. 
Various causes affect the fineness of the pile; and temperature, if 
not the most powerful of them, deserves more attention than has been 
paid to it. It has already been observed, and it is a matter of common 
remark, that the extremities of the wool, and, frequently, those por¬ 
tions which are near to the root, are larger than the intermediate parts. 
The extremity of the fibre has generally the greatest bulk of all. It is 
the product of summer, soon after the shearing time; when the secre¬ 
tion of the matter of wool is increased, and when the pores of the skin 
are relaxed and open, and permit a larger fibre to protrude. The por¬ 
tion near the root is the growth of the spring, when the weather is 
getting warm; and the intermediate part is the offspring of winter, 
when, under the influence of the cold, the pores of the skin contract, 
