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8 INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION, 1876. No. 3 weighs “ 4 « . 11 lbs. 15 ozs. o dwt. . 12 “ 9 “ 8 “ “ 6 “ . 10 “ 2 “ o “ . 13 “ 3 “ o “ “ I have the honor to be your obedient servant, “SAM. DAVENPORT, “ Special Commissioner for South Australia A brief review of the methods by which the Australian sfyeep- husbandry has reached its present commanding position, with a presentation of some of the instructive facts in relation to the Merino culture drawn from Australian experience, is justified by the importance of the subject. The principal sources of this review are responses to personal inquiries, or information obtained from or con firmed by the respective colonial Commissioners. Of the works having this sanction, the most important are Mr. Graham’s treatise on the Australian Merino and the New South Wales Wool Inquiry, pub lished in 1871 by the Agricultural Society of New South Wales. Captain John McArthur, an officer of the British army, who had landed at Sydney in 1790, just two years after it had been formed into a penal settlement, was the first to observe that the fleeces of the hairy Bengal sheep, brought from the Cape of Good Hope, had in some way become sensibly improved. Conceiving the idea that the soil and climate of the settlement were peculiarly adapted for the production of fleeces of the best quality, he induced the importa tion of a small flock of Merino sheep which had been sent to the Cape of Good Hope by the Dutch Government. In 1803 he took with him to England samples of wool from the crosses which he had made of coarse-wooled ewes with Spanish rams. At that period all the fine cloths of England were made of wool imported from Spain. Fortunately, Captain McArthur arrived in England at a time when the English manufacturers were alarmed lest their wool-supply from Spain should be cut off by a threatened war. Through the influence of these manufacturers Captain McArthur secured assent from the British Secretary of State for the Colonies to his application for a grant of ten thousand acres of land in New South Wales for carry ing on the growth of fine wool for export. He also obtained a few Spanish Merinos from the royal flock of George III., these Merinos being the “twin Cabana with the French Imperial Cabana Ram- bouillet.” Having arrived in the colony with his chosen flock, which was placed upon the tract of land secured by his grant, he commenced the reclamation of his estate and the creation of fine-wool flocks, through the persistent use of the George III. rams upon so sorry a lot