to cover all the sheep in the colony with fine wool.  Three crosses which under a proper system would occupy about six years, would be sufficient, if the government would employ the means at their disposal, to accomplish this great national object.  The number of sheep in the month of November last amounted, as it has already been seen, to 170,920; out of which, as I have just stated, 10,000 are of the pure Spanish breed or nearly:  it may therefore be perceived what an immense exportation of this precious article might take place in a few years, under judicious and politic regulations.

No country in the world is perhaps so well adapted to the growth of fine wool as this colony.  There is in its climate alone, a peculiar congeniality for the amelioration of wool, which has been found of itself to occasion in a few years, a very perceptible improvement in the fleeces of the coarsest description of sheep.  Even the East India breed, entirely covered with hair, produce without being crossed with a finer race a progeny, the superiority of whose fleece over that of the parent stock is visible in every remoter generation.  This amazing congeniality of climate is supported by local advantages of equal if not greater importance.  For hundreds of miles into the interior, the country has been found to be covered with the richest pasturage, and every where intersected with rivulets of the finest water.  A constant succession of hill and dale diversifies the whole face of the country, which is so free from timber, that in many places there are thousands of acres without a tree.

The settlements at the Derwent and Port Dalrymple, though situated in a colder climate, and therefore in all probability not equally congenial to the growth of fine wool, afford the same excellent pasture, and contain in every respect besides, the same facilities for the rearing of Spanish sheep, whose fleeces it is reasonable to expect on comparing the climate of these settlements, with that of Saxony, would not degenerate, if the same system which prevails in that country were followed in the management of sheep in this.

Saxony is situated between the 50th and 51st parallels of north latitude; and Van Diemen’s Land, on the northern and southern parts of which these two settlements are formed, between the 41st and 43d degrees of south; so that allowing for the superior coldness of the southern hemisphere, the whole of this island possesses a climate more congenial to the growth of wool, than the finest parts of a country, whose wool exceeds in value that of Spain and Italy.  The settlers, however, have not yet opened their eyes to the advantage of having fine woolled flocks, although they have for many years past had but a very limited market for their mutton, and the government there, as at Port Jackson, have made no efforts to turn their attention to this object.