444, QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Nov., 1899. 
L&IcESTER YEARLING, 
Fink Saxon Woot. 
rae 
=o) C ODS 
Exhibiting no Medullary Channel 
a Slight indication of Medullary Channel. 
which the wool is grown, as well as the climate and the season, greatly modify 
the appearance of a fleece. A much closer examination of the fleece 1s neces 
sary in Australia—at least, in the North-western parts of Queensland—than 
it is in Europe. Our sheep produce very little yolk, and the dry seasons, as We 
as the influence of the tropical sun, obliterate many outer indications which are 
available in Europe. A person who professes to be able to class sheep system- 
atically by merely allowing them to pass through a lane cannot perform g00 
work. In order to become fully acquainted with the good or bad qualities 0 
the wool, we must look at if in the shape of (1) the single fibre, (2) as 
the staple, (3) as the fleece in its entirety. 
The qualities of the wool fibre, to which we shall devote special attention, 
are its form, fineness, waving, trueness, length, soundness, elasticity, felting 
property, softness, lustre, &c. If we stretch a single fibre until its waving has 
entirely disappeared, it is not unlike a piece of fine wire or a cylinder of a 
diameter more or less equal in its whole length. The wool fibres of lambs are 
pointed at the top; they increase in diameter up to a certain place and become 
then thinner, so that the whole shaft has the look of a ape After the thickened 
and pointed end has been cut off once, the wool fibre will always exhibit a 
blunt top whenever it is clipped. A new, pointed top, however, is visible in a 
new fleece which the skin produces after the former one has been lost through 
illness or starvation. The several kinds of wool materially differ with reference 
to their diameter; that means if slices of the shaft were cut off horizontally we 
should notice different shapes. 
