Animal products : their preparation, commercial uses, and value / by P.L. Simmonds.

  • Simmonds P. L. (Peter Lund), 1814-1897.
Date:
1877
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Animal products : their preparation, commercial uses, and value / by P.L. Simmonds. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    Although upwards of 160,000,000 pounds of wool are produced annually in the United Kingdom, yet it may almost be said that sheep are kept in this country, not so much for their fleece as for the meat their carcases furnish, and for the great benefit they confer on agriculture. They have indeed been aptly designated the sheet anchor of British agriculture, so indispensable are they to the scientific farmers of the present day. But in im- proving the carcase of these valuable animals, great care has been bestowed upon their wool-producing capabilities, in order to preserve and increase as much as possible the quantity and quality of this important article. The wools of this country are therefore abundant in quantity, and of good, strong, and very useful quali- ties ; although not of such fine description as the Saxony, Spanish, and other Merinoes. The Animal Products Collection of the Bethnal Green Branch Museum is particularly rich in fine samples of fleeces, various kinds of wools, and stuffed heads of the principal breeds of sheep. On the east wall will be noticed— No. 1. A fine skin and head of a Hampshire Down ram, with a fleece of two years' growth. Nos. 2, 3, 4. Stuffed specimens of small sheep from the Shet- land Islands. Nos. 7 and 8. Two framed lithographs of South Down and Highland sheep. No. 9. An oil painting of one of the earliest improved Merino rams, known as the First Consul. In two large glazed cases against the east wall are sixty fleeces, with displayed locks, of all the choicest wools, British and foreign. A breed of sheep .to produce fine wool is distinct from a breed to produce mutton and wool. Of fine-woolled sheep the pure Merino takes the first place, producing a heavier fleece and of equal quality. It has also another great advantage over the Saxon Merino, in being much larger, hardier, and less liable to disease.