Volume 01: Production and resources of the northern and western districts of New South Wales, 1854 [ca. 1850-1857] - Page 246

Australian Merino. In proof of this I may state that I offered to stake my character as a judge, that if a sheep were selected with fleeces possessed of all the qualities in perfection, they would have both weight of fleece & weight of carcase. My offer was taken & I selected for Messrs Lang Brothers from their flocks and the pure flock of Messrs White Brothers, Portland, a number of ewes equal to some of the best bred Germans. Part had brought up lambs, & many were in poor condition. Yet the fleece of thirty four of them, which were carefully weighed, averaged 4lbs 2 ounces of well washed wool, & one produced 6 lb 1 ounce. They were besides, large, square, flat backed, compact sheep"

In Chapter 3rd the author discourses of the systems of breeding hitherto pursued. The effect of the introduction in early times of the Colony of the merino Sheep was, that to the original qualities of the Spanish & German wools the soil & climate had added the softness & felting property which it is their peculiar nature to produce. They (the Australian) then possessed a combination of every good quality; the strength & [indecipherable] of the German wool, with clothing) qualities Superior to other German & Spanish In fact the pure Australian Merino.

"Instead of a wool sound, clear, & bright a fair length & a lovely set on, they breed for a wool of extreme cottony fineness, under the erroneous idea that it was the fineness recommended by the brokers.

This ws a grievous error, for as it is produced only by an animal of weakly constitution, it was at the same time tender, delicate & soft, if of any length, then exceedingly watery & thinly put on.

This tenderness became so serious a defect that the wool must soon have been disused but for its superior milling quality, which after it became too tender to manufacture by itself, made it still valuable to mix with other wools. It gave the goods such superior closeness & stability of body, with such denseness & evenness of nap, that so long as the demand for fine goods continued the high price abundantly made up for its inferior weight.

The brokers never imagined that the Stockholders would not combine quality with the fineness they recommended, & in England they attributed the depreciation in quality to some defect in the soil & climate, whereas in the Colony, lightness was looked upon as an inevitable accompanyment of fineness so that but for a sudden change of fashion they might have gone on until their sheep were utterly ruined

Instead of fine broadcloth, good, made out of coarse wool, became the fashion & a sudden fall in the finest description was the immediate consequence. From

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Volume 01: Production and resources of the northern and western districts of New South Wales, 1854 [ca. 1850-1857] - Page 246

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