practices of the old world as I think may be advantageously adopted by the new; at present I wish to draw your attention to a subject which our probable rupture with some of the European powers, renders peculiarly interesting at this moment. I mean the improvement in our breed of sheep. It is upon this that we must rely for our independence of Europe, in an article of the first necessity.

The sheep of this State, taken collectively, are superior to almost any native race that I have seen in France, Holland, Lombardy or Italy, and very much resemble the south down sheep of England. In general, the sheep of those countries are about the size of ours; those upon the sea coast on the Channel and Lombardy are larger; those in Brittany much smaller. The wool of most of these breeds is inferior to ours in fineness, if we except the sheep upon the borders of Spain, some travelling flocks in the kingdom of Naples, and those in the small district of Berry. Anderson says, that wool sent from New-Jersey sold at the rate of the finest wool in England.

I believe in cold or temperate climates the inferiority of quality in the wool does not arise from climate, but from other accidental causes, which I shall point out. In France, I attribute it, first, to a neglect of those breeds that bear fine wool, and next, to the manner in which the sheep are kept.-They are folded in close pens, during the summer, all night, and part of the day. In winter they are crowded in small and ill aired houses; they are fed upon the commons, on the road sides, and on the stubbles, always confined close together by the shep herd's dogs, who are continually running round them, to prevent their straggling or touching the grain or meadows at the sides of them, for there are no fences. In dry seasons they are extremely pinched for food, and in the winter no green fodder or clover is prepared for them, and very seldom even hay; they are left to glean in the fields when there is no snow, and, when there is, to feed upon the coursest hay, or the leaves and branches of trees, which is frequently the only provender

laid up for them. It is held by the British agriculturalists, that bad keeping makes bad wool. If the sheep are alternately well fed and starved, the wool will be of different strength and thickness, and, of course, unequal and of a bad staple.

That the climate effects no change in them, I infer from the great success that has attended the introduction of Spanish sheep, which, where they have been treated with a little attention, have so greatly improved in their size, form and fleece, without any change in the quality of the wool, that full bred rams, imported directly from Spain, may now be purchased in France at a much less price than rams from the national flock at Rambouillet; a race that were introduced about twenty years ago into France. Superfine cloth can only be made from Spanish wool, and that without mixture with other sorts, from which it differs so materially, that Anderson asserts, on the information of British manufacturers, that they cannot be wrought together. The different species of broad cloth are not made by mixture with British wool, but by Spanish wool of different qualities. The coarse cloths only are made of British wool. France, as well as all the rest of Europe, being dependent upon Spain for the wool used in their fabricks of fine cloth, made various attempts to introduce Spanish sheep. In 1766 a number were imported and distributed among the people of different districts. But as the general opinion was, that Spanish sheep could only thrive in Spain, that the wool would degenerate if they did not travel from the plains to the mountains, and from the mountains to the plains; and, above all, as the peasantry thought, that what they received without price could be of little worth, no attention was paid to keeping the race distinct, and, of course, little advantage resulted from the measure, except to a few enlightened farmers: But their experiments sufficiently proved the practicability of the project, and determined the government to make the attempt again, and to put the direction of the project into the hands of a distinguished agriculturalist.

Application was made to the king of Spain for permission to

draw from his dominions a number of Merinos, the name by which the fine woolled sheep are distinguished. He not only permitted this, but ordered that they should be chosen out of the finest flocks in the kingdom. In the year 1786, they ar rived at Rambouillet, the national farm. Instead of giving away the increase, as had before been done, they were annually sold, which, of course, put them into the hands of the richer and more intelligent farmers. At first they brought a very moderate price, but their superiority over the other sheep of the country, the great improvement in the wool that resulted from crossing the breed, were so manifest, and the evidence that experience afforded of their supporting the change of climate and treatment without any sensible change in the quality of their wool, rendered the demand for them so great, that they have considerably advanced in price. In 1796, the average price was 80" franks, about 168; the last sale (April, 1805) the average price for a ewe was 250”, that is, about 50 $; rams brought from 60 to 1208. This is the more remarkable, as by the last treaty between France and Spain, the former had a right to draw 5000 Merinos from the flocks of the latter, 500 to be chosen annually for ten years. Skilful shepherds were sent to select them, and France now possesses above thirty thousand of these sheep, by importation, and by natural increase, and yet the price of the stock at Rambouillet has been regularly on the rise. The late minister of the interior, Mr. Chaptal, has a very fine flock, consisting of 1200 sheep. As the sales at Rambouillet were over before I returned from Italy, I requested him to spare me five from his flock, to which he consented, provided I only took lambs, and not more than two rams, for which I was to pay 1500 franks, about 300 $; this too was a very special favour. The shepherd I sent to choose them found the flock infected with the scab. I did not, therefore, think it prudent to take them, but left the money with a gentleman, who has promised to bring them out next spring, either from that flock, or those at Rambouillet. I should men

tion another circumstance, which proves that the wool does not grow worse in France when the stock from which they sprung was good. In April every year there is a sale of lambs of the preceding year, and of wool; the price of the latter was kept down by the artifices of the wool dealers, who pretended that it was inferior to Spanish wool. Some of the manufacturers, however, having for the two or three last years produced cloth at the exhibition, made of this wool, equal to that from the finest Spanish wool, the price has advanced to a par with the wool brought from Spain.

I should observe that the fine French cloths are finer and softer than those made in England, probably because very little of the finest Spanish wool goes to England, their import consisting of the second and third sorts, with some still coarser. The finest of the wool, to the amount of about three millions of pounds, is manufactured at the royal factories in Spain, and the remainder goes to France and Italy. The quantity of wool drawn from Spain by France was, before the revolution, about 4,000,000lb. but the manufactures having been ruined during the revolution, it was greatly diminished; what it is now I cannot declare. In the year 1786, England imported only three millions; but in the year 1796, the following is the state of the legal export from Spain, some is always smuggled into France and elsewhere.

Spain employs about three millions of pounds in her own manufactures. It may be proper here to observe, that all the sheep of Spain are by no means Merinos; but more of the stationary flocks are either what they call Chorinos, which are a

large, hardy, coarse woolled breed, or a mixture between them and the Merinos. Part of this latter wool is also exported.

As my object in this essay is to endeavour to impress upon my country the importance of propagating this breed of sheep, it may be proper to show the value of this wool compared to that of other races, and particularly of that of England, and to remove some false ideas that have gone abroad relative to them. The prices at Madrid for washed wool, in the year 1796, were as follows:

Anderson gives the value of wool in the London market about the same period, which, reduced to our money, stands thus: for the best

It appears from this, that the finest Spanish wool is not carried to England, since the price there was below the price at Madrid about the same period. Gov. Pownal, in a letter to Arthur Young, 1788, gives the following as the average prices of British wool: coarse seven and an half pence, common eight and an half pence, fine eleven-pence the whole fleece; that is, reduced to our money, about, coarse 14 cents, common 16, and fine 20; the south-down, which appears to me to have the staple of our best wool, 1s. or 1s. and 9d. our money. This difference between the price of British and Spanish wool, is the more worthy our notice, because it enables us to combat the preju