The Clothier of Civilization [pp. 438-444]

440 1~'he CTh~hier of Civilization. [April,
sheep. The cotswold and the Down have it leads a highly artificial existence but here,
one climate for their own, in which they are nevertheless, though sorely pinched and
invincible-the me4no has fifty. doubled together with the cold, its strong
The celebrated breeder, Hammond, of prepotency, given by "long descent," still
Vermont, builded better even than he knew. produces wool of the same fineness and softHe was traduced for years by men incapable ness that it yielded under the balmy skies
of comprehending his aims or equaling his of Spain. Once the petted possession of
achievements; but he held his peace and princes and nobles in North Germany, who
did his work. He accumulated in his flock hoped by starvation to make its fiber equal
such an immense reserve of the wool-bearing the silks of Italy, it was kept under the
aptitude that it sufficed to ameliorate mill- uncongenial rigors of their climate and on
ions of the hairy, half-naked scrubs of the their cold, sandy moors only at an unprofitWest. The index of this aptitude was, gen- able expense; and to-day it is passing away
erally speaking, folds or wrinkles and yolk, from Germany. Every year England sends
which he developed much beyond a profit- ship-loads of Oxford shire and South Down
able point for the out-door flock of the ordi- rams over the Channel, in order to receive
nary farmer, and which caused him to be back ten times as many ship-loads of fine
bitterly assailed; yet, without this excessive cross-bred mutton. In other words, the
development, the breeders in the West would English mutton breeds are slowly underminnot have been able to increase their fleeces, ing the German merino. In Amenca, too,
by a single cross, from an average of three the merino holds its place-at least, east of
pounds up to six, or even higher. Wrinkles the Mississippi~only by grace of Congress
are a nuisance to the practical flock-master, with its protective tan IT. The small farmer
but they are an almost inseparable coe~ffic- of the United States, with his flock of twenty,
ient of the highest wool-bearing capacity, and fifty, one hundred, five hundred, which rethe breeders of stud or standard flocks will quire shedding and feeding nearly half the
always seek more or less to cultivate them. year cannot compete with the sheep-run of
But the absurd and monstrous fashion in four hundred square miles in Queensland, on
which they were produced by the flock-mas- which the 240,000 sheep graze all the year
ters of Vermont, western New York, and round almost without expense! The choicnorthern Ohio, twenty years agQ, is passing est grade of XXX and picklock can be bought
away; and fifty years of healthy progress will in Melbourne for 27 to 30 cents, and laid
iron out many a wrinkle from the ideal work- down in Boston or Philadelphia for 30 or 33,
ing merino. which the American flock-master cannot pro It is a popular belief that the pelage of a duce (and live) for less than 40 or 45.
sheep transported to a tropical climate will The comparative smallness and obscurity
degenerate into coarseness; but this is an er- of the Eastern flock-ownerships tend to dull
ror. It is a fact well known to our manu- the sense of responsibility and encourage
facturers that Australian wools, grown under petty frauds; but the great Australian or
the tropical sun of the Darling downs, av- Californian grower is a public character,
erage finer than fleeces produced beneath known of all men, and he cannot afford the
the hyperborean rigors of Addison County. risk of "stuffing" his fleeces. Hence, to say
Were it not for the semi-annual shearings in nothing of the superior working qualities of
Texas and California, which bisect the fiber, Australian fleece, it comes to us in better
these wools would be accounted as valuable shape-clear body-wool, lightly tied with
for most purposes as Ohio fleece. twine, the skirts detached; while domestic
The hardiness and adaptability of the is often disreputably loaded down with
~rne~n~ under pressure of the demand for weight-making twine, and the interior of the
clothing before the era of the cotton-gin, fleece (which is not sorted) crammed with
projected it into latitudes and climates where foreign substances. More than that, the