STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



137 



EXPORT OF WOOL IN BALES. 



A considerable portion of the wools shipped this year have been in 

 pressed bales, weighing from five hundred to eight hundred pounds each 

 — the ordinary bales used heretofore averaging from two hundred and 

 fifty to three hundred pounds each. 



Of the entire export up to the year eighteen hundred and fifty-six, 

 probably nine tenths was of the native breed, originally poor enough, 

 and sent forward in such abominable condition as still further to depress 

 it in the estimation of dealers and manufacturers; and prejudices were 

 then formed against California wools from which they have not yet re- 

 covered. 



The rapid increase of our exports of wool is beginning to attract the 

 notice of Eastern manufacturers, and already California is looked to for 

 a respectable portion of the yearly supply. 



Is any increase of our product of wool that we may reasonably antici- 

 pate likely to increase the product of the United States beyond the 

 amount required for our domestic manufactures? A correct knowledge 

 of the annual product of the United States is essential to any satisfac- 

 tory conclusion on this point. In California, sooner or later, the entire 

 wool crop must pass through San Francisco, either for shipment abroad 

 or for use in our own factories; hence it is comparatively easy to arrive 

 at the exact annual product of the State. But there is scarcely another 

 State in the Union so situated, and one main dependence for the desired 

 information is upon the census returns. The statistics of agriculture 

 are always difficult to arrive at with precision, and it would be strange 

 if there were no discrepancies in details. The statistics of manufactures 

 are, however, readily attainable, and the importations of foreign wools, 

 being all invoiced at the Custom Houses, can be arrived at with cer- 

 tainty; together they give so close an approximation to the census 

 returns that wo may safely accept the latter as the basis of our calcula- 

 tions. 



In the year eighteen hundred and sixty, which may be taken as about 

 an average year, as there were then no causes at work to interfere with 

 the regular course of manufactures, the United States worked up over 

 eight}' million pounds of wools, besides using over sixteen million pounds 

 of cotton in fabrics designated as woollens. The total product of wool 

 in the United States for that year was onl}~ sixty-two million pounds. 

 Since that year, heavy tariffs have been laid on all goods of foreign 

 manufacture imported into the United States, and increased duties have 

 also been laid on all foreign wools, both measures calculated to benefit 

 the avooI grower of the United States, b}^ limiting the imports both of 

 foreign goods and of foreign wools. Yet it must be confessed that the 

 greater part of this protection to our domestic interests is extended to 

 the manufacturer, inasmuch as the duties on manufactured goods are 

 largely disproportioned to the duties on the raw material, and it is to be 



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