correct form, good fore-quarters, a broad back, and a good quality of skin, at the same time that it produced a good quality of wool. The same principle might still be observed and carried out in cattle and swine, and also in the horse. In the pig, a coarse, thick skin invariably covered a coarse fibrous flesh. So, also, with regard to the Lincoln sheep, that was especially adapted to produce lustrous wool; that, he contended, was not the kind of sheep which was required in the present day. Those who bred such sheep produced at the sacrifice of mutton. It required a larger. amount of mutton to produce a pound of wool, than would be required if they were not producing this lustrous wool. Mr. Robert Smith, who was present, knew the Lincoln sheep better than he (Mr. Hobbs) knew them; but there were other gentlemen present, who lived in Linconshire, and though Lincoln flocks had been improved of late years, he believed that to produce a pound of lustre wool in the spring of the year would require four pounds of mutton. He thought that Mr. Smith would agree with him that a hogget of Leicester form, with early maturity, was ready for the butcher in the month of May; whereas a sheep producing this lustre. wool, would not be ready for the butcher till the month of July. In that case there would be eight weeks additional keep to supply. He believed the Lincoln graziers fed their sheep with from one pound to four pounds of cake per day. At all events it might be assumed that there was an outlay of 9d. per week, and they might set down the rest at 3d. (A voice, "six pence.") Well, he would say 6d., making 1s. 3d., which, in eight weeks, would amount to 10s. Now, in those two months, how many pounds of wool did the lustrous old-fashioned Lincoln sheep produce? It certainly did not produce more than four pounds of wool; nor did he believe it would produce so much. He contended that a sheep possessing the Leicester character would come to maturity better, and fetch a better piece of mutton in the month of May, than the old Lincoln, with lustre fleece, would in the month of July, and that they were losing 4s. in mutton for the sake of gaining an extra quantity of wool. But, independently of that, let them look at the loss sustained in the quality of mutton by having a lustrous fleece. When he first acted as a judge at an agricultural meeting, being then very young, he happened to act with an old judge, whose words he well remembered. It was in the county of Bedford and they had before them a pen of old lustrous Lincoln sheep. His friends requested him to put his hand on the back of one of these Lincoln sheep, and said to him, "If you made a hole there, and put a quill in it, you might suck it as you would an orange." When they got these Lincoln, with their illustrous fleeces, they usually had an inferior quality of mutton.

Bell's Weekly Messenger of that day told them that the difference between the price of Lincoln sheep and that of Southdown was 1d. per pound; and although the farmers of England were very desirous of assisting the manufacturers as far as they could, and if possible, of obtaining a better return for their wool, they must take care not to sacrifice the quantity and quality of mutton in endeavoring to increase the production of wool. He thought he was not saying too much with regard to the quality of the mutton of Lincoln sheep. His old friend on his left (Mr. Skelton) gave him just now a very humerous description of the quality of the mutton of the Lincoln sheep. He said it was some of the best mutton in the world; that if killed at Christmas, and hung up for twelve weeks, and then interlarded with five score of oysters, it would be found wonderfully good stuff. In relation to quality, he would now read what was said by an able writer fifty years ago. At that period Mr. George Culley said: "The rich fatting marshes in Lincolnshire are, beyond any other county I know of in the island, best adapted to the growing and forcing of long heavy wool. This, with the high price that kind of wool had given, previous to the American war, very probably induced the sheep breeders of that county to pursue it so ardently in preference to every other requisite, that they neglected the form of the carcass and inclination to make readily fat essentials, that the other sheep breeding counties were under a necessity of attending to, otherwise they could not have got them made fat in proper time, from their land not being in general near so rich as the Lincolnshire marshes. In short, the Lincolnshire breeders, by running so much upon wool and large bones, had got their sheep like their black horses-two great ends, a long thin weak middle; and lost the thick, firm barrel-like carcass, broad flat back, fine clean small bone, and inclination to make fat." There was also the following note in reference to the writer's travels: "On asking a butcher's wife, at Bury, in Suffolk, how she sold mutton? Five pence a pound, sir! answered she, smartly. And pray, replied I, (rather surprised at the high price,) have you no mutton below five pence? Oh yes sir! rejoins the honest woman, plenty of Lincolnshire at four pence; but we do not account it mutton when compared with our Norfolk or Suffolk mutton."

That was in former days. Their friend Mr. Skelton would, no doubt, tell them that since that period there had been a great improvement in the Lincoln sheep; an improvement which was affected by crossing with the Leicester. It might be objected that the book from which he had just quoted was an old one. He would refer to a prize essay, written a few years ago for the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society, by a gentleman that was well known to all present, (Mr. Robert Smith), an essay

which was highly appreciated at the time by agriculturists throughout the country. Mr. Smith there said: The Long-wools are principally classed under the head of Lincolns, New Oxfords, Cotswolds, Teeswaters, and Kents. The long-wooled Lincolns were formerly the chief or only variety produced in the county; they seemed formed for the then rich marshy soils or cold situations, (there being little or no heath land under cultivation,) and their principal property was their long, strong wool to protect them against the vicissitudes of the eastern winds, upon their bleak open pastures during the winter months. They were further known by their large white heads and ears, long thin carcass, with exceedingly large bones; and from their wool bearing propensity, they were scarcely ever fattened previously to the third year.

In consequence of the rapid advances of our manufactures in the production of finer woolens, and the altered tastes of the people, this breed of animals has happily gone nearly out of fashion; some few are yet to be found in the neighborhood of Louth, Caistor, and Boston, and are sought after by some breeders, who sell their lamb-hogs in the spring to the marsh graziers, to be by them fattened if possible.

Now, there had been a good deal of discussion on this subject privately in the club. One day he asked Mr. Bell, who was one of the oldest members of the wool trade, as well as a member of the club, whether if he were to show him a map of England he could not trace out with a pencil the districts where lustrous wool could be grown to the greatest advantage? The reply was in the affirmative, and that in no other parts of England could such wool be produced profitably. He (Mr. Hobbs) bred Leicester sheep for many years in the county of Essex, and he did all he could to maintain the natural character of the wool. The lustrous character of the fleece gradually disappeared, and he at length became convinced that it was useless to contend against the course of nature. He trusted that the farmers of England would pay due attention to this point. They might be very willing to listen to any suggestions with regard to the increased production of wool, but to ask them to sacrifice the mutton was a very different matter. He was very glad that he had requested Mr. Anderson to introduce this subject; but he thought it would be found that neither the Lincolns, Leicesters, nor the Cotswolds, however they might be treated, would enable farmers generally, with the peculiarities of climate and situation, to supersede the short wools of the south of England.

Mr. Ward, (Drayton, Rockingham,) said, as farmers they must all feel indebted to Mr. Anderson for having come forward to point out to them the kind of wool which in his opinion might be grown advantageously; but the difficulty with which they had to deal with was in obtaining a proper soil for growing lustre wool

It seemed very extraordinary, but it was a fact, that long-wool might be produced from a district extending for seventy miles, and that after that it unavoidably became short. He could not quite agree with Mr. Hobbs in what he said about the Lincoln sheep. The Leicester and Lincoln sheep were almost the only sheep that could produce the kind of wool that Mr. Anderson thought they ought all to endeavor to produce. They were told by Mr. Hobbs that these sheep were all of a very bad quality.

Mr. Hobbs said he spoke of the old Lincolns, not of the improved ones. Mr. Ward continued: For his own part he must say that being in the habit of going into Lincolnshire in the spring, he found better sheep at the Lincoln fairs than anywhere else. Within the last three or four years he had seen three or four hundred tegs pitched in a pen and sold at three guineas apiece. Lincoln sheep could not, therefore, be so bad as Mr. Hobbs seemed to suppose. Many tegs in Lincolnshire weighed 14 stones, and some as much as 17 stones in April, when they were a year old. From the paper which had been read they learned that the wool which fetched the highest price was goats' wool. According to that they ought to keep goats instead of sheep.

The Chairman: What breed of sheep do you patronize?

Mr. Ward replied that he had no particular breed; his sheep were Leicesters, and he touched them up slightly with the best Lincolns.

Mr. Unwin (Colchester) observed that there was no branch of trade or manufactures in this country which had commanded in past times so much attention as the worsted and woolen trade.

The growth and cultivation of wool also had occupied the leisure of the affluent, and the skill and sagacity of the agriculturist from time immemorial. Notwithstanding the fiscal reforms which had of late years been carried out, thereby securing free ingress into this country for the produce of every part of the world, the British farmer enjoys at the present moment what amounted to a monopoly of the growth of long wool. This is simply owing to the fact that no other country possess such skillful agriculturists, and no other climate or soil in the world has been found so suitable for producing long-wool in perfection as Great Britain. There was now no royal woolstapler, as in the reign of some of our earlier monarchs, to dictate the price at which wool should be sold. There was therefore a wider scope for the extension of the growth of wool and the breeding of sheep than there was in any other department of agricultural enterprise and production; and he thought it both the interest and duty of the British farmer to increase the production of these articles to the largest possible extent. The augmented value of lustrous wool was owing to the introduction of an entirely new branch of manufactures; he referred to the manu

facture of alapaca. Mr. Salt, the owner of Saltaire, was the first purchaser of alapaca in this country, and the first to convert it into beautiful fabrics. The extensive use of alapaca gradually led to an increased demand for Lincoln wool, for the purpose of mixing with alapaca, and the manufacturing of fabrics of a lustrous appearance. The result of this great demand for Lincoln wool has been to change the relative positions which fine and coarse long wool formerly occupied, and enhance the price of heavy Lincoln wool far above the fine Southdown, so that at the present moment Southdown wool is selling: Bradford at 1s. 8d., and Lincoln fleece is selling at 1s. 11d.

Fashion was, as they all knew, very capricious and uncertain, and it would be very unwise in farmers to change their system altogether because a particular kind of manufactured article happened to be for the time most in favor. He would advise them to use their own judgment and discrimination in the matter, and select that class of sheep which was most adapted to their diversified localities, and which would produce the most mutton and the best wool. Having had thirty-five years' experience in the wooltrade, he had never known Down ewe fleeces fetching a higher price than they did at this moment, evidencing that all classes of wool participated in the present brisk demand. Such was the extension of the demand for worsted and woolen manufactures that there seemed to be no limit to the consumption of sheep's wool, while obtainable at a fair price.

Last year, whilst the home growth was estimated at 157,000,000 lbs., the importations amounted to 147,000,000 lbs. The estimate of the amount of wool produced in Great Britain, was based on a supposed average yield of 4 lbs. per fleece from 35,000,000 sheep. He thought the average was not less than 5 lbs., and if that were the case, there would be produced annually in this country 175,000,000, of the value of £10,000,000 to £12,000,000 sterling. It was almost impossible to magnify or exaggerate the national importance of this branch of our industrial enterprise. It was equally important to the interest and success of the grazier and breeder of sheep to endeavor to ascertain what description of sheep was most adapted to produce in the locality in which he might be situate, the most delicate flesh, combined with the greatest weight of carcass and fleece. Those were the points to which they should direct their attention. No doubt the county of Lincoln was best adapted for the growth of heavy lustrous wool, in consequence of its rich pastures and greasy soil. The Lincoln sheep had a preference for a soil of that nature, and it suited and stimulated the growth of wool, and assisted to impart to it its gloss or lustre. There were, perhaps, other parts of the kingdom where Lincoln sheep might flourish, but it was limited in extent. They might, perhaps, be kept to advantage in the lower