WOOL-PRODUCING ANIMALS-THE SHEEP.

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Although upwards of 160,000,000 pounds of wool are produced annually in the United Kingdom, yet it may almost be said that sheep are kept in this country, not so much for their fleece as for the meat their carcases furnish, and for the great benefit they confer on agriculture. They have indeed been aptly designated "the sheet anchor of British agriculture," so indispensable are they to the scientific farmers of the present day. But in improving the carcase of these valuable animals, great care has been bestowed upon their wool-producing capabilities, in order to preserve and increase as much as possible the quantity and quality of this important article. The wools of this country are therefore abundant in quantity, and of good, strong, and very useful qualities; although not of such fine description as the Saxony, Spanish, and other Merinoes.

The Animal Products Collection of the Bethnal Green Branch Museum is particularly rich in fine samples of fleeces, various kinds of wools, and stuffed heads of the principal breeds of sheep. On the east wall will be noticed

No. 1. A fine skin and head of a Hampshire Down ram, with a fleece of two years' growth.

Nos. 2, 3, 4. Stuffed specimens of small sheep from the Shetland Islands.

Nos. 7 and 8. Two framed lithographs of South Down and Highland sheep.

No. 9. An oil painting of one of the earliest improved Merino rams, known as the First Consul.

In two large glazed cases against the east wall are sixty fleeces, with displayed locks, of all the choicest wools, British and foreign.

A breed of sheep,to produce fine wool is distinct from a breed to produce mutton and wool. Of fine-woolled sheep the pure Merino takes the first place, producing a heavier fleece and of equal quality. It has also another great advantage over the Saxon Merino, in being much larger, hardier, and less liable to disease.

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WOOL PRODUCE OF THE WORLD.

The Saxon Merino is found by farmers, even in Saxony, to be so unprofitable, that the numbers kept are being gradually diminished.

WOOL PRODUCE OF THE WORLD.-The following table, compiled from the most reliable information obtainable, furnishes an approximate estimate of the production of sheep's wool in the principal countries of the world in 1874.

STATISTICS OF OUR WOOL IMPORTS.-The demands of our Woollen Manufactures require a large and increasing supply of the raw material; of this only a small proportion, estimated at 160,000,000 to 200,000,000 lbs. annually, is produced in the United Kingdom, and hence we are largely dependent on foreignsupplies. Fortunately, the British possessions are increasing their wool production year by year, and rendering us more indepen

WOOL IMPORTS-BRITISH BREEDS OF SHEEP. 9

dent of supplies from foreign countries, as the following figures of our imports will show :

BRITISH BREEDS.-England has for a long period been cele

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TWO-YEAR OLD SOUTHDOWN, SHOWN AT TAUNTON, 1875.

brated for her sheep. The leading and most improved shortwoolled breed is the small brown-faced Southdown, chiefly

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BRITISH BREEDS OF SHEEP.

occupying the hills of Sussex, but also now diffused over other counties. Its fleece, short and fine, weighs from three to fou

DORSET RAM, SHOWN AT CROYDON, 1875.

pounds; and its mutton, fine in flavour and grain, weighs, in two-year-old wethers, about eighteen pounds the quarter.

AVERAGE WEIGHT OF FLEECES.

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The Dorset is another short-woolled sheep, see preceding page. The only other breed now looked upon as pure stock are the white-faced, long-woolled sheep, which are known as Leicesters from their home being the great midland grass district, of which Leicester is the centre.* The numerous other breeds are generally traceable to some amalgamation by crossing and recrossing.

The breeds of sheep in the British Islands may be divided into two principal groups :-1. Those of the plains, grass lands, and arable districts, which vary greatly in size, quality of mutton, and the weight of wool they produce; and, 2. The hill or mountain sheep, which are less variable in general character, although they are greatly altered by the quality of their native ground and the altitude at which they generally range. The bulk of the mutton and wool of the country is now produced by the flocks kept on the old pastures and such lands as are worth cultivation by the means applied to modern agriculture.

It is not necessary to enumerate and describe the numerous varieties and sub-varieties of breeds of sheep common in different parts of England and other countries. Sheep of the Cotswold long-wool breed have been known to reach the enormous weight of eighty-four pounds per quarter, or 336 lbs. the carcase; and fleeces weighing above twenty pounds are not uncommon.+

AVERAGE WEIGHT OF FLEECES.-In 1851 Mr. Thomas Southey, after extensive inquiries, took the average weight for the United Kingdom at 5.lbs. Considerable changes have taken place in the actual weights of fleeces, owing to improved breeding; and even during the last quarter of a century this has been the case with sheep bred in agricultural districts, though not so much with those bred on pasture lands. The weights, moreover, are

Frame No. 29 shows the characteristics of this wool, and in Case 46 are samples and locks of long wool from Earl Fitzwilliam's flocks.

For these four representations of prize sheep of special English breeds we are indebted to the courtesy of the proprietor of the Agricultural Gazette.