"That the average of Ohio washed wools (washed on the sheep) is 35 per cent., while the aggregate production of other States will be in excess of their amount about 5 per cent.; that when the wool grower gets seventy cents per pound for his wool, he in fact gets one dollar and twelve cents for clean wool. The editor of that paper says: "We suppose our correspondent means to say that when the manufacturer buys unwashed wool at seventy cents, he really pays one dollar and twelve cents; and asks the question, if the farmer should properly clean his wool would the manufacturer pay him one dollar and twelve cents per pound? Correspondent "B," does not mean unwashed wool, but wool well washed upon the sheep. For there is not a manufacturer in the United States whose wool, if well washed upon the sheep, does not average a shrinkage of over 35 per cent. every year. "We do not say he will not have lots that will not shrink less than that, yet we know he will have much that will shrink more. We know of scoured wool which was well washed upon the sheep, which shrunk 44 per cent.; some very clean light Cotswold and Leicester which shrunk 20 per cent. after being washed upon the sheep, and well taged; wool that was not washed upon the sheep, which shrunk 76.5 per cent. This was from fancy stock raised in Vermont. Is it correct to apply the term wool to such stock? If the less proportion is always contained in the greater, ought it not to be called grease? We know of scoured wool that shrunk 66 per but we have no recollection of unwashed wool that shrunk less than 40 per cent." cent.; These things must be and are considered by those who buy wool; and notwithstanding the oft repeated assertion of some of those who do not wash their wool, that they obtain within five or ten cents per pound as much as their neighbor who does not half wash his wool, yet they do not obtain as much as their neighbor who washes his wool well, by 33 per cent. if their sheep are Merinos. The only way to settle this disputed point is for the farmers to wash their sheep well, and then they will have done paying a high price for the taansportation of dirt. No class of sheep so clearly demonstrate the effects of good feed and careful breeding as the improved Southdown. The original breed having been raised from time immemorial upon a low range of chalky hills, running parallel with a part of the southern shore of England, the greater part being in the county of Sussex. These are called the Southdowns. They are about eighty miles in length, and from five to six miles in breadth-the highest point being about eight hundred and fifty feet above the level of the sea. The soil is light and sandy, the grass short, but very sweet. The valleys among the Downs were once almost as barren as the hills themselves, but by cultivation have been rendered exceedingly fertile, to effect which the sheep has rendered considerable aid, pastured upon the hills by day, and folded upon the arable lands by night, which it enriched with its manure, and received a recompense in artificial food raised for that purpose, such as rye, grass, tares, clover and rape; and in the Spring frequently turned upon the young rye; in the Winter they are fed with a good supply of turnips. Thus, while they have aided in changing the character of their feed, that feed has aided in changing their character and the character of their fleece. When Mr. John Ellman, of Lewis, in the county of Sussex, England, commenced improving this breed, and who succeeded as well as any person ever succeeded in any undertaking, and who has transmitted the great secret of his success to all desirous of profiting by it, that success consisted in strictly obeying the laws of physiology. The breed at the commencement of his labors is described as having light fore quarters, narrow chests, long necks, flat ribs and long limbs. The length of the staple was from one and a half to two inches; the fleece did not weigh over two pounds; the wool, though comparatively fine, was furzy, harsh and brittle, and was used for carding only, yet possessed but poor felting properties, and belonged strictly to the short wooled class of sheep. The wethers, which could not be fatted before they were from three to four years old, when fat weighed from fifteen to eighteen pounds per quarter. This description must not be received strictly as a matter of history, for such a class of sheep yet exists upon its native hills, owned by poor, shiftless farmers, who can not afford them better food than the unimproved hills afford, and whose consciences would not allow them to step out of that path their forefathers trod before them. Mr. Ellman, his compeers and successors, by paying strict attention to breeding, selecting those ewes for stock purposes which were furthest removed from the kind described, obtaining the best rams of the same breed wherever they could be found, by never breeding from ewes after they were four or five years old, they endeavored to get rid of the colored face and legs, these being now its greatest defects, and mark its origin. If the sheep are kept till too old, these colored hairs find their way into the body. We have in our care an old ewe's fleece which is full of kemps, but they are not white, as in the white faced and white-legged sheep, but brown. The gentlemen who were engaged in improving their stock, in addition to the care bestowed in breeding, bestowed an equal care in improving their lands, and with the improved feed succeeded in greatly increasing the size of the fore quarters, the widening and deepening the chest, obtaining greater width of back and loin, while the ribs were more curved, the trunk became more symmetrical, and the body has become larger, or the limbs smaller in relation to each other. The wethers are usually fatted at the conclusion of their second year; though in some of their best flocks they are often ready at the age of fifteen months, their average weight being from twenty-five to forty pounds per quarter. A Mr. Grantham exhibited a pen of three Southdowns at the show of the Smithfield Club, in 1835, one of them weighing 283 pounds, a second 286 pounds, and a third 294 pounds. While the carcass has been thus largely increased, and early maturity so wonderfully produced, the improvement of the fleece has been equally successful. The length of the staple of those kept upon the improved farms of the Downs has increased to three inches, the weight of fleece to three pounds, while the fleeces of those raised upon the more fertile fields of the lowlands have attained four pounds and over, and the length of the staple reached four inches. This has been accomplished without the introduction of any other breed. Jonas Webb, Esq., of Cambridgeshire, who never made a cross with any other breed, but by a careful selection of his ewes from the best flocks in the kingdom, and retaining none but the best of their progeny, and selecting the best bucks from the best flocks in the country, improved the breed to such an extent that the average weight of his fleeces from one hundred and fifty to two hundred sheep each season, was about eight pounds. The quality of the wool has been greatly improved at the same time that it has been increased in quantity. It has lost much of its harshness, and has increased in softness and pliability. It can no longer be called a short, furzy wool, but the improved breed can take their place among the best English combing breeds, not for producing warp wool, but for producing the best of filling. Though not belonging strictly to the long-wooled class of sheep, the place of the improved breed is not with the short-wooled class. We noticed in the Massachusetts Ploughman of December 5th, 1863, some re-. marks upon this subject, in connection with a letter from a gentleman who had been compelled, as one of a committee at an agricultural show, to class Southdowns with Cotswolds, thus ranking it with a first class long-wooled breed. The editor of that paper, however, is equally at fault in endeavoring to force it back to the short-wooled class, where Professor Lowe found it, and where he left it, although at the time he wrote the improved breed had ceased to be a short-wooled sheep. The term short-wooled, was first applied to those sheep whose fleeces were only fit for carding, and long-wooled to those which were used for combing only. At that time it was not considered possible to comb wool whose staple was shorter than four inches; and it was thought equally impossible to card any thing longer than two inches; and the sorter of long wools at that time was required to cut down with his shears all skirtings longer than that, to the required shortness. Since then Saxony and Merino wools have been combed whose staples were not more than one and a half inches in length, and wool four inches in length is considered good carding wool. It is evident from this that the old classification of breeds has been rendered of little practical value; for, according to that classification Saxony and Merino are both classed as short wool, yet large quantities of both are produced, which are good combing. The Southdown ought to be classed as a middle-wooled sheep, which is its proper place, yet it never ought to be brought into competition with either Cotswolds, Leicesters, or Oxford Downs, or any of the old styled long wooled sheep; neither should Sax-. ony or short-wooled Merino be brought into competition with the longwooled Merino. But probably the time has not arrived for a very close classification of sheep at our cattle shows; if it has, then they ought to be classed according to different breeds, and different varieties of the same breed. But as they are now classed, it would be as proper to class a thoroughbred horse and a Clyesdale horse together as a Southdown sheep and a Cotswold. The history of the improvement of this breed of sheep teaches us some important lessons. One is that the improvement of land and of stock are inseparable. Another is that whoever would succeed in sheep husbandry, and particularly of Southdowns, must be careful in the selection of their ewes, their rams, and of the age at which they cease breeding; they must avoid breeding from all stock whose form leads towards the old unimproved, but select those which exhibit the best points of the improved breed. Neither must they be sparing in the amount or in the character of their food; if they are heedless about these things, they may expect to see the Southdown, with all its present acquired valuable characteristics, go back, not by slow and almost imperceptible degrees, but by rapid strides, to the place it occupied a hundred years ago, before Mr. Ellman commenced his improvement, and before the valleys of the Downs were rendered sufficiently fertile to afford superior food to the short grass of the sandy hills. In the county of Gloucester, England, running parallel with the rivers Avon and Severn, are a range of limestone hills about fifty-four miles long, and in some parts eight miles broad, the highest point being about 1134 feet above the sea level. The soil is a clayey loam. Upon these hills from time immemorial, has been raised a class of sheep called Cotswolds, to which the hills owe their name, and from these hills the sheep derive theirs. For in ancient times the sheep were kept during the night in large houses, capable of containing from one to five hundred. These houses were called cots, or cotes, in which the sheep were sheltered to protect them from wolves. Would or wold signifies a barren hill-the compound word meaning sheep folds on barren hills. Around sheep bearing this name, tradition and history have endeavored to weave a classic wreath. William Camben, a Latin writer, in his Britannia, published in 1586, says of these hills: "They feed in large numbers flocks of sheep, long-necked and square of bulk and bone, by reason, as is commonly thought, of the weally and hilly situation of their pasturage, whose wool being most fine and soft, is held in passing great account amongst all nations." John Stowe, another writer of the sixteenth century, says in his chronicles, that in the year 1464, "Edward the IV., concluded an amnesty and league with King Henry of Castile, and John, King of Aragon, at the concluding whereof he granted license for certain Cotswold sheep to be transported into the country of Spain, which have there since mightily increased and multiplied to the Spanish profit, as it is said." Some writers have been so exceedingly vain as to assert that this importation was the origin of the Spanish Merino. Michael Drayton, in his Polyolbion, published in 1613, contrasts the rich fleeces of the Cotswolds with those of the Ryeland flocks, raised in the vicinity of Sarum and Leominster, and though for fineness he yields the palm to the Ryeland, he claims for the Cotswold the heavier fleece. "T' whom Sarum's plaine gives place though famous for its flocks, Yet quite he puts her downe for his abundant store." Adam Speed, writing in 1628, describes the wool of the Cotswold sheep as similar to that of Ryeland: "In Herefordshire, especially about Lempster, and on those famous hills called Cotswold hills, sheep are fed which produce a singular good wool, which for fineness comes very near to that of Spain, for from it a thread may be drawn as fine as silk." The comparing the breed of sheep that at that time was raised upon the Cotswold hills with the Ryeland breed, is all we know of it at the present day. The Ryeland was one of the smallest and finest wooled sheep in England. And when we consider that at that period the Cotswold hills were bleak and barren wastes, we are certain that a sheep as large as the present breed could not subsist there. But when or how this small breed. became extinct upon these hills we know not, nor do we know from whence came the large breed that now occupies its place and bears its name. Some are of the opinion that the large breed has been produced from the small one by careful breeding and feeding. But the characters of the former and present breed prevent us from arriving at such a conclusion, and a traditionary belief exists among the inhabitants of these hills that |