366     THE WISCONSIN FARMER.



are always seen on the surface, should be of
medium diameter. If they are too small they
indicate a fineness of fleece which is incom-
patible with its proper weight; if too large,
they indicate coarse, harsh wool.
  The good properties of wool are too well
understood to require many words. Length is
no longer an objection to the finest staple, as
it once was. The maximum, both of thickness
and length, cannot be attained on the same
animal, and the object of the breeder should
be to produce that particular combination or
co-existence of tllese properties which will
give the heaviest fleece.
  inenen-The grow r knows his markets
and must produce an article adapted to it. In
the American market there is a much larger
demand for medium than fine wools, and the
former commands much the best price in pro-
portion to the cost of its production. It is to
be hoped, however, that the demand for fine
wools will increase.  Whatever the quality
aimed at. it should be the same throughout
the flock, so far as is practicable.
  E'enneaa.-Evenness of quality in every
part of the fleece, so far as this can be obtain-
ed, is one of the first points of a well bred
sheep. Jar is very objectionable, but not so
much so as what the Germans term dog's hair
-hair growing out throngh the wool on the
thighs, the edges of the nieck folds, about the
roots of the horns in rams, or scattered here
and there through the fleece or inside the legs.
This indicates bad blood or a defective course
of breeding.
  Trueness and soundneim-Wool should be of
an equal diameter from the root to the point
of the fibre. It should especially be free from
any finer or weaker spots or "joint' in it,
occasioned by a temporary illness or other low
state of the animal. This can often be de-
tected by the naked eye, and always by pull-
ing the fibre. Wool is said to be sound when



each other in every other particular, but that
under the same treatment one is comparative-
ly stiff and hard to touch, while the other ha.
a silky pliancy and softness, the latter is de-
cidedly the most valuable, because it will pro-
duce manufactured articles far superior in
beauty and for actual use. But in point of
fact full blood wool is almost invariably soft
in proportion to its fineness, and is always so
in proportion to its marketable value.  A
practiced buyer can decide on that value in
the dark.
  Styk is, perhaps, a word which has rather
vague boundaries to its meaning; but it in-
cludes that combination of useful and showy
properties which gives value to the choicest
wool, viz: fineness, clearness of color, lustre,
uniformity and beauty of curving, and that
peculiar mode of opening on the body, or dis-
position of the fibres on the sheared sheep,
which indicate the last extreme of pliancy
and softness. These qualities, in combination,
present an appearance at once, without a suf-
ficien.tlv close in tn to disenver the see-



arate fibres, or even without a touch of the
hand, to point out the best fleece in the pile.
  Yolk.-This, in its most usual form, is a
semi-fluid, unctuous secretion from the skin,
found in wool of various breeds of sheep, par-
ticularly in that of the Merino.  Sometimes
there is only enough of it to lubricate and
make a shining coating on every fibre. In
others, it appears additionally in little bril-
liant globules among the fibres,  It others
still, it forms a separate, visible and abund-
ant mass in the lower parts of the wool. In
sonie instances it is as thin as the most deli-
cate oil; in others, pasty and viscid; in oth-
ers it has the spissitude of soft wax, and ap-
pears in concretions of considerable size
within the wool; and when it is sufficiently
abundant in the fluid form to ooze constantly
to the cuter extremity, it catches and retains



it is strong and elastic.                   'dust, the pollen of hay, &c.,
and gradually
  Pliancy and Softess are considerations of inspissates into that black gummy
mass now
the first importance, not only as indicia of so eagerly sought for by a class
of Merino
other qualities, but intrinsically. If we can breeders.
suppose two lots of wool exactly to resemble I Vauquelin, a celebrated French
chemist,