t what we once supposed the defect in our wool, is only a
deficiency in cleaning, sorting and dressing it.

It gives me pleasure to hear that a number of gentlemen in Hartford and
the neighboring towns are forming a fund for the establishment of a great
woolen manufactory. The plan will doubtless succeed; and be more
profitable to the stockholders that money deposited in trade. As the
manufacture of cloths is introduced, the raising of wool and flax, the raw
materials, will become an object of the farmer's attention.

Sheep are the most profitable part of our stock, and the breed is much
sooner multiplied than horses or cattle. Why do not our opulent farmers
avail themselves of the profit? An experience would soon convince them
there is no better method of advancing property, and their country would
thank them for the trial. Sheep are found to thrive and the wool to be of
good quality in every part of New England, but as this animal delights in
grazing, and is made healthy by coming often to the earth, our sea-coasts
with the adjacent country, where snow is of short continuance, are
particularly favourable to their propagation. Our hilly coasts were
designed by nature for this, and every part of the country that abounds in
hills ought to make an experiment by which they will be enriched.

In Connecticut, the eastern and southern counties, with the highlands on
Connecticut river towards the sea, ought to produce more wool than would
cloath the inhabitants of the state. At present the quantity falls short
of what is needed by our own consumption; if a surplusage could be
produced, it would find a ready market and the best pay.

The culture of flax, another principal material for manufacturing, affords
great profit to the farmer. The seed of this crop when it succeeds will
pay the husbandman for his labour, and return a better ground-rent than
many other crops which are cultivated. The seed is one of our best
articles for remittance and exportation abroad. Dressing and preparing the
flax for use is done in the most leisure part of the year, when labour is
cheap, and we had better work for sixpence a day and become wealthy, than
to be idle and poor.

It is not probable the market can be overstocked, or if it should chance
for a single season to be the case, no article is more meliorated by time,
or will better pay for keeping by an increase of quality. A large flax
crop is one most certain sign of a thrifty husbandman. T