En 
ter, in chemical composition, and in natural 
uses; but differs from it in texture, in form, in 
softness, unctuousness, and pliability, and in 
adaptation to artificial purposes. See the article 
Harr. It grows from a soft pulp included ina 
bulb-like sac, which communicates through mi- 
nute nerves and blood-vessels with the surround- 
ing tissue; it springs from the cellular tissue, 
immediately below the true skin ; it passes up 
thence to the exterior of the epidermis in the 
form of a fine cylinder; and, in all its develop- 
ment externally from the skin, it has a scaly 
texture with the lamina pointing from the root 
toward the tip, and extends in a spiral direction 
or with wavy curvatures, and has minute and 
regular serratures along its edges, and is pro- 
tected and rendered soft and supple and pliant 
by a peculiar secretion called its yolk. — 
All wool is complete in its formation at the 
point where it issues from the skin; and re- 
ceives constant accessions to its length at its 
| radical extremity, or at the point where it issues 
| from the bulb-like sacs. Some persons think 
that the lengthening of it occurs at the top, and 
| is effected by a sort of pushing outward or up- 
ward in a manner analogous to the growth of 
acrogenous plants; but they may easily convince 
| themselves of their error by staining a portion 
of growing wool with a solution of lunar caustic 
| at an equal distance from the root and from the 
top,—for in the course of a month or so, they 
will readily perceive the distance between the 
mark and the root to have increased, while that 
between the mark and the top remains the same. 
| All intelligent shepherds and store-farmers, too, 
| know well that the white unstained wool which 
grows between the time of salving and the time 
of shearing, and which many of them familiarly 
call ‘the rise,’ is found, never at the top, but 
always at the root. The degree of increase is 
greater at some seasons of the year than at 
others, and differs widely at every season in dif- 
ferent breeds of sheep; yet is powerfully con- 
trolled, in every instance, by the condition of 
the animal’s health, the nature and quantity of 
its food, and the circumstances of its situation, 
insomuch that, under successive and wide dif- 
ferences of health and feeding in one year, the 
| parts of the wool of each filament or of the whole 
fleece, when examined by the microscope, will 
be found to possess corresponding differences of 
character. The increase of the wool of any 
salved or mountain sheep, from the time of salv- 
ing about the middle of November till the time 
of shearing about the middle of July, may rea- 
dily be ascertained by measuring ‘ the rise,’ and, 
in the case of a black-faced sheep of average 
character, pastured on a farm of medium qua- 
lity, will be found about two inches; and if it be 
examined and measured at successive and regu- 
lar intervals between the two periods, it will be 
ascertained to have effected one half of all its 
increment during the two months immediately 
WOOL. 
before the shearing, ‘or to have been proportion- 
ally double in each of the months of summer of 
what it was in each of the months of winter and 
spring. But this difference largely accrues from 
the comparative scarcity and plenty of food; and 
in the degree of its doing so, is accompanied 
with a corresponding difference in the quality of 
the successive parts or increments of the staple. | | 
Whatever wool is produced partly under full | 
feeding and partly under deficient feeding does 
not exhibit an uniform glistening appearance, 
but is comparatively opaque in the portions 
which grew during the deficient feeding, and 
seems shrivelled and contracted, and is very 
liable to break, and, in consequence, is not only 
of deteriorated market value, but wants due fit- 
ness for many of the manufacturing purposes to 
which it might otherwise be applied. 
The aggregate character of wool is mightily 
modified, and even may be totally altered, by the 
influences of climate, of the long continuance or 
violent changes of particular depasturement or 
feeding, and of the steady pliance of cross-breed- 
ing, peculiar farm-feeding, special shelter, and 
other home practices for forming or altering va- 
rieties and breeds of sheep. The covering of the 
wilder races, particularly in tropical or subtro- 
pical countries, comprises scarcely any wool at 
all, but consists almost wholly of hair, similar to 
that of goats ; and even the covering of many of 
the domesticated breeds, in the more temperate 
regions of the world, particularly in places where 
defective or unskilful attention has been given 
to the arts of culture, contains a greater or less 
intermixture of real hair. But by frequent 
shearing, combined with the constant influence 
of judicious domestication, the fleece of very 
hairy breeds gradually parts with its hairiness 
and acquires more and more true wooliness, till 
it eventually becomes all over a tissue of genuine 
wool; and in the most favourable circumstances 
of climate and situation and treatment, it may 
even attain properties of comparatively high 
fineness, softness, and tenuity. In Britain, how- 
ever, the improveableness of the fleece is much 
limited by the severity of our winters, the many, 
great, and sudden vicissitudes of our weather, 
and the natural limitation or embarrassment of 
some of our strongest appliances of domestica- 
tion. Hair without any mixture of wool, in- 
deed, covers only the face and part of the limbs 
of any of our sheep; yet real hair, in very many 
cases, is more or less mixed with the wool in the 
other parts of the body ; and the wool itself, even 
when free from intermixture, continues stub- 
bornly averse to assume as high a fineness as 
that of the best breeds in some other countries. 
Most attempts to improve the quality of our 
fleeces, too, have been accompanied with dimi- 
nution of the quantity ; and some of them have 
been carried so far as not only to reduce very 
seriously the weight of the clip, but also to 
affect severely the appearance and the value of 
