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GENERAL REPORT OF THE JUDGES OF GROUP IX. cost of production, and the loss of that distinction which formerly encouraged the growers of the noble wool. Mr. Bochner, of Aus tria, one of the Judges of this group, is authority for the statement that Count Hunyady, of Hungary, one of the exhibitors of the Electoral fleeces at the Exhibition, produces 12,000 pounds annually of these wools, which he sells at 90 cents, principally in France, for the manufacture of imitation Cashmere shawls; but at these prices there is no profit in the culture. The few growers of this wool in Hungary, who are generally noblemen, continue the production only from motives of pride. Most of the wealthy proprietors, who for merly made a specialty of the production, have abandoned it or allowed their flocks to run down. In no portion of the world have so much science and intelligence been directed to the Merino sheep-husbandry as in the German states. Saxony was the first to acquire the Spanish Merinos in any consider able number, first receiving them in 1765- In 1774> pure-blooded progeny of the Spanish importations amounted to 325 head. As the culture of this race extended, there grew with it a desire to increase the characteristic property of the fleeces or the fineness of the fibre. This passion, as it became, for the utmost possible fineness of fibre, irrespective of all other considerations, led insensibly to the methods of breeding which produced a race possessing this attribute in the highest degree, but with a corresponding delicacy of constitution and lightness of fleece. This race, known in this country as the Saxon and in Germany as the Electoral, or Escurial, both names being used indifferently, does not appear to have been the inheritance from any special Spanish Cabanas, but a production of art. The com mercial demand produced by the reputation of their wools led the German growers to increase the size of their animals and fleeces. Another race was developed by the side of the one above described, the ideal of which was a robust body producing the largest possible quantity of wool of the utmost fineness consistent with the increased production. This race was called the Negretti, from Count Negretti, the proprietor of one of the most celebrated original Cabanas in Spain. It was also sometimes called the Infantado race, from the Duke of Infantado, another Spanish proprietor; both terms, as in the case of the term Electoral and Escurial, indicating the character of the race and not its special Spanish descent, as it is often erroneously held. The descriptive terms Negretti and Infantado were found at the Exhi bition applied to wools of the same general character. While Silesia is still in possession of the largest number of the superfine Electoral sheep to be found in the whole world, Saxony, Pomerania, Mecklen-