_ sand, dung, &c. 
| evils, it was recommended—and the recommen- 
| dation is worthy of being attended to in the 
|| present day,—first, to confine all brands to the 
770 
growth of wool in England, or very soon after, 
the art of manufacturing it commenced, cloths 
being certainly made not only in the year 1224, 
but long before; and towards the close of the 
13th century, one Thomas Cole, was distinguished 
by the name of the Rich Clothier of Reading, in’ 
Berkshire. One of the greatest clothiers that 
England ever produced was also a native of 
Berkshire, John Winchcomb, commonly called 
Jack of Newbury; he kept about a hundred looms 
in his house,—and, in the expedition to Flodden 
Field against the Scots, marched a hundred of 
his own men, all armed and clothed at his own 
expense. “If we may be indulged a conjecture,” 
says Smith, in his Memoirs of Wool, “touching 
the origin of wool-sacks in the House of Lords, 
as a notable memorial of great consequence, we 
should imagine it to have been, if at all, some 
‘time during this struggle (namely, the resistance 
of the people to Edward I. levying, by his own 
authority, forty shillings on every sack of wool 
| exported), to perpetuate the remembrance of the 
noble stand made on that occasion, and of an 
allowed indefeasible right in the subject not to 
be saddled with any tax or imposition by other 
authority than that of Parliament.” The state 
| of woollen manufactures in Scotland about the 
year 1705, appears to have been as follows :— 
“They made, of their own wool, stockings at 
Aberdeen, from ten to thirty shillings a-pair; 
broad-cloth, about twelve shillings per yard ;— 
fingrins, bayse, serges, trimmings, and all sorts of 
fine worsted camlets, and other stuffs, very near 
as good as in England ; besides Glasgow plaids, 
in which, as well as stockings, they excelled 
greatly all other nations.” About the year 1752, 
great complaints were made by the wool-staplers 
_ of the evil done to the fleece by the practice of 
branding sheep with pitch and tar, and also of 
the false and fraudulent binding of the fleece, in 
which it was the custom, for the purpose of 
increasing the weight, not only to include the 
worst kind of the wool, such as tail-wool, shank- 
locks, coated wool, &c., but also clay, stones, 
To lessen the former of these 
buttocks or hinder leg,—second, to limit the size 
of the brand,—and third, to prohibit the use of 
pitch and tar to all other marking thought pro- 
per to be put on sheep. 
“ After the year 1773,” says Professor Low, 
_ “a revolution occurred in manufacturing indus- 
_ try, which may be said to have changed the con- 
| dition of human society. Machinery was applied 
to the fabrication of cotton, and the stupendous 
power of steam was called into more extended 
action. First came the spinning-jenny, by which 
a child could direct a hundred spindles and 
more, all at a time; then the beantiful frame of 
Arkwright, which required merely that the raw 
material should be supplied, in order to be spun 
WOOL. 
into threads of surpassing fineness; then the 
mule-jenny; and last the power-loom, which 
substituted mechanical for human power in the 
forming of the cloth. A similar machinery was 
applied to the spinning and weaving of wool, . 
and the whole processes of the art were changed. 
The variety, quality, and cheapness of the pro- 
ductions increased in a wonderful degree ; and, 
notwithstanding the amazing extension of the 
use of cotton in furniture, clothing, and dress, 
the consumption of wool in England has not only 
not diminished, but is at this time greater than 
in any former age. The number of sheep in the 
British Islands has been variously computed at 
from thirty to thirty-five millions. Taking the 
latter sum, which probably falls below the real 
amount, and assuming the produce, after mak- 
ing allowance for the deficient weight of the 
wool of slaughtered sheep and lambs, to be 44 
Ibs. the fleece, the total quantity produced will be 
157,500,000 lbs. 
4,603,799 
152,896,201 Ibs. 
a 
Whereof are exported in the raw 
state, : 
Leaving to be manufactured, 
And assuming the price to be 
1s. 3d. per lb., the value of the 
raw material will be , 
The value of foreign wool im- 
ported, 56,700,895 lbs. at 2s, 
6d., is t 
£9,556,012 11 38 
7,087,611 17 6 
£16, 643,624 Mey 9 | 
——— 
Supposing, then, the value of the manufactured 
commodity to be 23 times that of the raw mate- 
rial, the value of manufactured woollen goods 
produced in Britain will be £41,609,061:1:10. | 
This great national manufacture supplies a larger 
internal consumption than takes place in any 
other country; and affords a surplus, valued at 
between six and seven millions sterling, besides 
yarn, valued at about half a million, for an ex- 
port trade to all parts of the world, being more 
than one-eighth part of the whole export trade | 
of the kingdom. The woollen trade is, there- 
fore, of surpassing importance to the nation. 
has to contend with the fiscal regulations, and 
the increasing production and rivalry of other 
countries ; but hitherto the superior capital, 
machinery, and industry of the country, and the 
facilities of an extended commerce, have given 
advantages to the British manufacturer which 
no European country as yet possesses.” —Smith’s 
Memoirs of Wool.—Bischoff’s Comprehensive His- 
tory of the Woollen and Worsted Manufactures.— 
Southey’s Treatise on Wool.—MacCulloch’s Com- 
mercial Dictionary.— Bakewell’s Observations on 
Wool.— Youatt on Sheep.— Spooner on Sheep.— 
Low’s Domesticated Animals.—Luccock on Wool.— 
The Annals of Agriculture—Parliamentary Pa- 
pers.—Anderson’s Recreations in Agriculiure.—The 
Farmer's Magazine.—The Quarterly Journal of 
Agriculture—The Transactions of the Highland 
It | 
EE 
(OO NR MTA A OCLC EI AE AS OCA CAL LOA POE OEE A C—O RRL T CE LOT Te 
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