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GENERAL RERORT OF THE JUDGES OF GROUP IX. 23 This influence makes it necessary to dwell at some length upon the French wool-industry, since it is one of the lessons of the Exhibition. The sheep-husbandry of France is unquestionably declining, at least in numbers. President Thiers said in 1870, “Our ovine popu lation has gone down from 40,000,000 to 30,000,000. It is stated on the authority of the Inspector-General of Agriculture, that the number of sheep in France had been reduced from 301386100c* in 1866, to 24,707,496 in 1876, a loss of 5,678,787 in six years. Presi dent Thiers attributes this decline to the absence of protective duties on wool, others to the abuse of an absurd law which allows the muni cipal councils to prescribe the number of head per hectare which each farmer is permitted to keep. The number of Merinos, or their grades producing fine wool, is estimated by M. Sanson at 9,000,000. The other flocks, consisting of indigenous sheep producing coarse wools, and some English mutton-sheep, have no special characteristics worthy of notice. The wool-industry of France is remarkable for the influence it has had upon the combing-wool manufacture of the world, and conse quently upon the sheep-husbandry of all the nations which supply it. Louis XVI. obtained from the King of Spain zoo rams and ewes of the pure race of Leon and Segovia, exactly a century ago, viz., 1776. In 1786 he obtained 367 more, which were the foundation of the famous Rambouillet flock. In 1799 France received, through the treaty of Basle, 5500 animals from the finest flocks of Castile. Sixty sheep-folds were established by Napoleon as accessories to that of Rambouillet, where proprietors could obtain the service of Merino rams free of charge. The directors of the national sheep- folds pursued in breeding precisely the opposite course to that adopted with the same original race in Saxony and with the Tropeau dt Naz in France. They aimed to increase the size of the frame and the weight of the fleece. With this increased size and weight there was developed a corresponding length of fibre, and a Merino comb ing-wool was for the first time created. The French manufacturers were the first to avail themselves of this new property of wool which their own territory supplied. National pride stimulated them to create new fabrics from the new material supplied from domestic sources. They invented Mousselines de laine Merinos, cashmeres, challis, bareges, and more recently worsted coatings, in a word, all the woolen stuffs of the nineteenth century which distinguish them selves in their physiognomy from the tissues of the preceding cen turies. The English and other manufacturing nations in due course followed the French example. Wool, instead of furnishing the ma-