88 Observations on Spaxish and English Wool.[Feb,

of suppiying the deficiency in the quality. Such persons I must, at present, refer to your intelligent correspondent, Mr. Nehemiah Bartley, and others, who have detailed their expe- riments and opinions on this Subject. I Shall content myself with concluding this letter with an extract from the commu- nication made on this Subject, to the Edinburgh Wool Society, which will Shew the prodigious extent, to which the trade in Britich Wool has been conducted.

The Wool of England, in the reign of Edward ITIL. is gene rally Supposed not to have exceeded in quantity 150,000 Sacks, of 360 pound weight each, which is equal to 225,000 packs of:240 pounds, according to the packages of those days. In Jater times, computations have great)y varied. According to Davenant, there was, in England alone, at the commence- ment of the present century, about 400,000 packs, worth 51 each; which, when manutactured, produced eight millions in value. Trowel,-in his plan for preventing the clandestine running of wool, printed anno 1738, sSupposes 800,000 in England and Treland, and about 925,000 packs in the three kingdoms.* Others, about the Same time, computed the num- ber of packs at 1,274,000. Mr. Arthur Young calculates the number of Sheep in England alone, at nearly 29,000,000; and the value of'the whole growth and labour of the Wool of Great Britain and Ireland, at 17,695,5291.; furnishing employment to about a million and a half of people. We Shall Suppose, however, that there are only 28,800,000 Sheep in the whole iSland of Great Britain, producing, at an average, 51b. weight of Wool each, or 144,000,000 1b. in all, equal to 600,0060 packs, and worth, at the rate of 81. per pack, 4,800,0001.- If ihe valge of the raw material is quadrupled by the labour that is bestowed upon it, the growth and labour will amount to 19,200,000l1. to which, if there be added the valne of the Wool imported from Spain, and the labour employed in it, it will make a total of about twenty millions.

I Shall Send a letter on a Subjectl to which I have before adverted, by the first convenient opportunity, and in the meam time, I remain,

Sir, your most humble Servant,

"MERCATOR TARRACONENSIS.

* A respectable member of this association(Mr. Wansey, of Salisbury) informs me, that in 1740, an estimate of the growth of Wool, in England, was given in to the Lords of the Treasury, when it was Stated at.738,002 packs. This is probably the 5ame with Trowel's.