The ultra-soft, blinding-white merino wool comes from the back of the ram, ewe or lamb. To get the best wool possible, the farmers make sure that shelter, grass, soil and air are of the very best quality. Every year, they study genes and DNA in order to identify the best sheep, and the prize ram is always mated with the best ewe. Many farmers refers to their source of income as “the white”, and are proud of what they have developed and produced over the last two hundred years. The first merino sheep from Germany, the extremely fine, white Saxon Merino breed, came ashore to the sunny island of Tasmania in the 1820s, and today Australia is the world's largest producer of merino wool.