When the Saxon growers found that the tariff of 1842 brought them no relief, they began to give up their costly and carefully nursed flocks. The example once set, it became contagious; and then was a period when it seemed as if all the Saxon sheep of the country would be sacrificed to this reaction. Many abandoned wool-growing altogether, at a heavy sacrifice of their fixtures for rearing sheep; others crossed with coarse-woolled breeds; and, rushing from one extreme to the other, some even crossed with the English mutton breeds; or some, with more judgment, went back to the parent Merino stock, but usually selected the heaviest and coarsest-woolled Merinos, and thus materially deteriorated the character of their wool. This period became distinguished by a mania for heavy fleeces. The English crosses were, however, speedily abandoned. The Merino regained his supremacy, lost for nearly a quarter of a century, and again became the popular favorite. It was generally adopted by those who were commencing flocks in the new Western States, and gives its type to the sheep of those regions. The supply of fine wool, then, proportionably decreased, and that of medium and coarse increased. Wools, for convenience, may be classified as follows: _superfine_, the choicest quality grown in the United States, and never grown here excepting in comparatively small quantities; _fine_, good ordinary Saxon; _good medium_, the highest quality of wool usually known in the market as Merino; _medium_, ordinary Merino; _ordinary_, grade Merino and selected South-Down fleeces; and, _coarse_, the English long-wools, etc. This subdivision is, perhaps, minute enough for all practical purposes here. It soon became apparent that, to sustain our manufacturing interest--that engaged in the manufacture of fine cloths--the diminution of fine wools should not only be at once arrested, but that the growth of them should be immediately and largely increased. An increased attention was accordingly bestowed upon this branch of industry, and sections of the country which had previously held aloof from wool-growing, embarked in that calling with commendable enterprise.