| Show SHEEP HUSBANDRY IN GREAT I 1 BRITAIN j I 1 the following instructive and valuable article by cuthbert Cuth bert berf W johnson esq F R S in regard to wool as a product for kanuf ac turing and woolen rags as fertilizers will be read with interest and profit both by farmers and manufacturers I 1 the wool of his Us sheep is not only interesting to the farmer from its commercial value but after being wrought into woolen fabrics he gladly re purchases it as a powerful manure it is only in modern times that his wool slowly escaped from the care of the legislature or almost as tardily became known to him for its fertilizing powers it was as early aa as the year 1337 that we find the exportation of english wool prohibited the same measure of injustice to the farmer was conferred in 1521 and in 1790 the wisdom of parliament was evinced by the pro hibi tion of the export of wool from E england or even from ireland to england angland Cn gland giand it was not till the year 1824 that the acts of parliament restraining the exportation of wool wooi were finally repealed it was no however without vit hout i reason that the parliaments of other days interfered with the tife production of wool even as late rs the sixteenth century the flock masters of ireland veland and scotland had a summary way of gathering wool from the sheep which the rulers of those times were enlightened enough to restrain thus by act of bf the irish parliament 11 and 12 charles 1 II 11 I c 15 entitled an act against plowing by the tail and pulling the wool off living sheep 11 it is declared that in many places of this kingdom there hath been a long iong time used a bt barbarous r custom of tf plowing harrowing drawing and working with horses by the tail whereby besides the cruelty used to the beasts the breed of horses is much impaired in this kingdom and also drivers have and yet do use the like barbarous custom of pulling off the wool yearly from living sheep instead of shearing them these miserable practices were then declared to be illegal and to be punishable with bine fine and imprisonment it is evident however that there had been a previous irish ordinance on this subject s since i rice I 1 such a reformation is referred to in a I 1 letter ietter el ater written to his scotch council by ein kin king 0 dameg james in 1617 Cham chambers bersy annals of scotland vol 1 p gives an extract from a curious entry in the scotch catch privy council record the document states that in some remote and uncivil places of this kingdom an old and barbarous custom was still kept up of plucking the wool from the sheep instead of clipping it the king hearing of the practice wrote a letter to hig his council coun council cit denouncing it ai as ode one not to be suffer j ed telling them that it bad had already been reformed in Irelan dunder a penalty of a groat on every sheep so used and was far less to lo be endured in you the ile council immediately march 17 1617 passed an act in the same tenor and after stating that many sheep died in in consequence of this cruel treatment concluded with a threat of severe fines on such as should hereafter continue the practice I 1 it is remarkable adds mr chambers that in the faroe islands there is this day no other way way of taking the wool from sheep than that which ahl ich was then only kept up in remote parts of scotland it is curious to notice by what slow degrees just notions were adopted with regard to the sheep and its wool not only by the parliament but by the farmer we can only get hints of things from the early english a agrical urai ural writers old oid old oid IV Wor vor lidge in ih 1680 i ii in hii his his considerable folio work on a agriculture culture barely bestows bestons a dozen lines upon th the sheep shelp he tells us that in his time the herefordshire Hereford shire sheep about leominster bore the fairest fleeces of any in en england land 11 but Wor lidge ever seemed to prefer the live stock that had the most young ones at a birth thus he concludes of sheep but the dutch sheep are the largest of all being much bigger than any I 1 have seen in england and yearly bear two or three lambs at a time it is also reported that they sometimes bear lambs twice in the year whatever may have been notions with regard to sheep he was evidently aware of the value of woolen substances as fertilizers for lie he tells us in his chapter chapter on the of land in rags of all sorts there is good virtue they are carried far and laid upon kand fand and have llave in them a warming improving temper one good load will go as far as a dozen or the best cow dung 2 it was near nearby y two centuries after the time of this ear early 1 anglish anglish author on rural affairs that the us use 0 of f woolen 0 0 en rags as a manure began to be bett better e r understood and especially as to the portion of them in which their fertilizing virtue consists to this question professor way addressed himself with his usual caution and amount of success ile he very justly felt that it would hardly be satisfactory to content himself with the analysis of wool wooi since as lie he observes jour rov eov ag soc vol x p olt to reason from froia the composition of a raw material of any kind upon that of the tiie manufactured article which has passed through perhaps half a dozen processes is often to lay ones self open to much err error or and nothing short of the direct analysis of the rags themselves would enable any person to form a correct notion of their value wool in a state of purity parity contains upwards of 17 per cent of nitrogen were woolen rags therefore of the s ame same strength as the wool itself they should produce ultimately a larger amount of ammonia than even pure peruvian guano it will be valuable then to examine the chemical compositions of some of the commonly sold refuse woolen rags these rags are well knowland know nand extensively employed as manure in in some parts of our island oin oln owing as the professor remarks to their slow decomposition composition We in the soil they are not well fitted for root culture turnips and other plants of this kind requiring active and ready soluble manures manures to produce a rapid growth still this must not be taken as an undoubted fact since in the experiments of the late mr jur pusey on the growth of beet root ibid vol vi p when thirteen tons of farmyard manure per acre produced tons clean roots the addition to the dung of seven hundred weight of rags raised the produce to 36 tons this increase he attributed to the large proportion of azote or nitrogen nit rowen romen present in the rags woolen rags were formerly as mr way adds to be purchased of good quality and unmixed with any less valuable substance sab stance but of late ae years ars rags of a size that used to be sold to t the e farmer are bought up to be recon averted into an inferior kind of cloth the supply being in this way in part cut off is frequently niage made good by the admixture of such linen or cotton rags as may not be worth the paper makers attention three th ree specimens of these refuse rags were examined oy by the professor specimen no I 1 consisting of the seams scams and other useless teem parts a ts 0 of the old cloth cioth which had apparently deen cut c t up to be re manufactured into cloth no 2 called pr emings and no 3 cuttings appeared to be much of the same character but totally different from the rags they both consisted essentially of colored wool less than an eighth of an inch in length these all contained in their ordinary state a certain proportion of water in the three specimens above referred to the per cent nag rag contained oi of water Pr emIngs 7 cuttings 8 1 0 in this state the proportion per cent of nitrogen which they contained and the proportion aioo of ammonia which by the decomposition of animal matter will be eventually produced from them and from a specimen of shoddy y is given giyen ia in the follo following wim wlm 0 tables amm nia 0 47 1271 Premin fremin irs 1205 cuttings lisl 1181 1431 shoddy it appears then says prof way that it is gulte quite bite incorrect to estimate t the b e value of the different lif ferent different kinds of woolen refuse by the known composition of the wool itself for to whatever cause the inferiority may be due it is plain that they do not on an average contain two thirds of the nitrogen found fouad in in the raw material the mineral substances found ia in wool refuse are of small bertili fertilizing value in parts of some inferior wool wooi refuse were found I 1 water 7 15 animal matter and oil ph phosphate 0 ot lime 1 48 ox oxide ide of iron and gio glo carbonate of lime sand ac 21 lossy loss ac lo io 10 this specimen contained about 25 25 per cent of nitrogen professor has explained the chief reasons for the considerable difference of opinion which exists in different places with regard to the fertilizing value of woolen substances ibid vol 16 p 94 these he con sider sare to be best understood by a reference i to tp their analysis and the time of their application and the physical compositions of the soul shoddy 1 forn forir istance S ilace 1 often oden sp contains contains cont from eol to sa M pen per perc percent cent ent bf oil whick which by bye e x clouding moisture and the atmospheric air from t the h e in interior t brior 0 of f the wool hairs which compose this refuse prevents its decomposition as effectually as the oil in sardines or a cover of grease the potted meat and thus the decomposition of the shoddy is retarded for a gon ion considerable eld sid sid erable peri that no effect is produced if itis it is applied to the land when the young wheat ha already made its appearance or even if applied two or three months previously but if the same renise is applied to the land a considerable sid erable period before the sowing of the crop which it is is intended to benefit or if it is previously brought into a state to readily ferment and then it may be applied at once to the young wheat a very marked and early good 1 effect will be produced by its use since ammonia nia is then gradually formed from the nitrogen of the shoddy in light and porous soils J this necessary preparation proceeds much more rapidly than in stiff heavy lands the farmer by his practice confirms these chemical conclusions the ile kentish hop grow I 1 i ers era we are told by mr S rutley yin in his prize essay ibid vol ix p deem woolen rags shoddy and refuse seal skins to be very lasting manures but much more valuable and early in their effect on dry than wet soils all of them being the best adapted for the soils of the kentish rag on the kentish hop grounds they apply from 12 to 20 cats per acre of woolen rags 20 to 20 cwt cat of shoddy an and d about ico bushels per acre of seal skin for corn crops on light chalky land or for grass about 10 or 12 cwt cat ci vt per acre of woolen refuse are used in Oxford shire and berkshire I 1 the amount of wool produced by different I 1 breeds of sheep was some little since ascertained by mr J 13 lawes the ile average weight of the wool per head produced from froio 50 wether Cots wolds 40 sussex 43 Lelce rs 40 hampshire downs and 42 crossbreed cross breed was as follows albs abbs OZ 01 Cots wolds 9 43 4 31 3 1 4 hampshire 6 va 4 unsex 6 5 ID 10 Lelce rs 8 2 cross breeds 1 A 6 7 the proportion of wool wooi to pounds of the live weight weighs of the sheep aith atthe time being shorn in march was cotswold Cots wolds wold camp bire lire su ax L 1 i cross breeds mr S bruce of ausham considers the average weight of the fleeces of different breeds of sheep be as follows farmers almanac vol yi vi p ewe tee tet te cots old oid 5 to 7 ibs lbs Z 7 to 10 ibs lbs leicester 4 6 6 5 8 lampshire down 3 6 5 6 7 7 ruye pare south do 2 4 3 6 cross Cot wood and anil southdown 4 6 6 8 the importation of foreign wool has largely and steadily increased during the present century previous to the year 1800 all the wool annually imported barely exceeded 3 lbs ibs and this was chiefly spanish about the year 1801 this had increased to about ibs lbs in 1810 to 10 ibs lbs 1820 9 01 0 1830 33 lo 10 1850 4 74 1853 1833 1 of this 1 large arge quantity in the year 1858 TO 16 ibs lbs came from the cape of good hope and CO ibs lbs from australia of these imports ibs lbs were exported in 1850 and ibs lbs in 1858 A considerable quantity of foreign woolen rags fit only for manure are also yearly imported por ted in 1830 they amounted to tons 1052 in 1840 and to 1102 tons in 1842 since which I 1 am not in possession of an official statement it is remarkable how little the large supply of foreign wool has tended to reduce its en english market value from 1784 to 1790 the t re price of southdown wool was about Is 1 per ibs lbs in 1800 it was Is ad in 1810 as ad in 1820 Is ad in 1830 it had fallen to iod lod it 1 i is now about as and not only has the lock aock flock owner had to contend with an annually increasing import of wool but moreo moreover the number 0 of f our sheep and consequently the home produce of wool has enormously increased during the present century and again from the improvements in their breed the we weight I 1 ht of their fleeces has also become considerably consider ly greater the number of sheep in great britain were estimated in 1698 by gregory king to be about in 1740 they were calculated to have increased to arthur young in 1774 thought they were about 1 and in 1804 1801 mr lurcott estimated them at they are now estimated to be about 00 E england possesses scotland in 1854 1834 had ireland in 1853 had so thatah that at a headtke head the sheep stock of britain is worth about are annually slaughtered these at 80 ibs lbs each furnish ibs lbs mutton which at ad is worth sterling professor lowe thinks that on an average each fleece weighs 41 ibs lbs so that the total produce of wool will be ibs lbs fixing then the total yearly value of the wool of great britain at Is ad this produces nearly As regards the increased weight of the fleece in 1800 mr IV W nottage of Bermond sy ascertained that the southdown bonlon shee sheep when slaughtered at full maturity in ia london t produced produce I about 31 rha iba 0 of wool wooi per essm 1 r t i ess 1 N fa W cin zin skin thirty ye ar inbe imbe lid kid found that t tiley y yielded from 4 ft 41 ibs iba ardd arid that this has still further iri lri increased creased of lale late years V g I 1 trace these very important ana and interesting statistical facts with the more pleasure because I 1 feel that happily my countrymen possess in their farming one branch of the profession of a agriculture i culture which well ivell rewards them for their ill lil and energy fortunate fortunately too there are as yet no symptoms sym of the floal flocks of england being exhausted in their produce or deteriorated in value but on the contrary there is yearly to be found in our island more numerous an and more productive flocks and in support of these a larger a better paid and consequent cons consequently equen 1 1 y better fed and warmer clad population ula tion 1 happily too for our country whilst the demand for woolens and muttons buttons thus largely increased f foreign i imbor importations i tationa tat ions iono however considerable have failed to diminish their market value |
