Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1886 [PAGE 236]

EXTRACTED TEXT FROM PAGE:

228 We conclude, therefore, that the wool fibre is a more or less cylindrical shaft, surrounded by a scaly cuticle, or at least scales attacked to each other or to a supporting membrane, and that this cylinder in its normal condition is of nearly uniform diameter throughout its length. Very often, however, we find considerable "variation with this latter regard. Sometimes we find the fibres contracted at certain parts of the shaft, often gradually, but quite as frequently suddenly, so that the contraction presents the forik of a. notch in the side of the image as viewed through the microscope. At other times enlargements occur, so that the fibre may be almost -doubled in size. The contraction is known as atrophy and the enlargement as hypertrophy. Many observations have shown that \when the animals have been in perfect health through the year, and have been well fed and cared for, these forms do not occur, and that these forms may be accepted as indications of the condition of health of such animals. They impair that quality known as ^evenness, and then their production should therefore be avoided as far as possible by close attention to the food and shelter provided for the flocks. Neither wool-growers nor manufacturers have any difficulty in /fixing a general classification of wools. The differences are sufficiently distinct to separate the long from the short wools, and the ^coarse from the fine. And when we examine the external minute structure of the fibre with the microscope similar differences are apparent. A practiced eye may at once distinguish between the wool of any long-wooled breed and that of the short-wooled breed; but there is greater difficulty in distinguishing between the wools of these two great classes, a difficulty especially marked when we compare the several classes of fine wools established by the commercial graders. All the long wools, the Cots wold, Lincoln and ^Leicester, have very much the same external structure. In the same way the pure downs and marinos approximate each other so that i n the latter case the main difference, perhaps, is found in the fineness. If in the practice of breeding we produce a cross between >the long and the short wooled breeds, the external characteristics of both appear in the progeny, and similar characteristics appear i n the wool, so that those of either blood will be maintained in the wool of the descendants for several generations, and are more indelibly impressed upon the Merino race by crosses with the longwooled races than with any others. In many cases, therefore, microscopic study of the fibre becomes more valuable in the determination of the purity of the pedigree, than any general indications can possibly be. The tendency of all animals to deterioration and to revert to the inferior stock makes such distinctions permanent. It appears to be a fact that the introduction of pure down blood to the Merino causes less marked differences, and these differences should have less of influence for evil than taints of long wool, still they are frequently apparent in variations in the fineness of the fibre, producing sometimes very uneven staple. We cannot further discuss this point here, but enough has been said to indicate its importance.