WOOL INDUSTRY. 183 



be worth from two to five cents more than beef. The consump- 

 tion of beef for our armies during the war seriously diminished 

 the supply of cattle, which required years to repair. The sheep 

 husbandry, so capable of rapid increase, stimulated by the extra- 

 ordinary activity of the wool manufacture during- the war, filled 

 the void in the beef production, and kept the prices of animal 

 food within reasonable limits ; for the abundance of mutton kept 

 down the prices not only of that commodity, but of all animal 

 food. The benefits of this diminished cost of sustenance to every 

 individual of our population has never been properly estimated. 

 The cost of animal food to our population is certainly ten times 

 that of wool clothing, which is but four dollars per head. As- 

 suming that the whole duty on cloth is a tax on the consumer, 

 and that the sheep husbandry, aud consequent supply of mutton, 

 are stimulated by protection, we may safely conclude that the 

 whole duty on the cloth is reimbursed to the consumer by the 

 diminished price of food resulting from the protection of wool. 

 No legislation can wisely disregard this relation of the wool indus- 

 try to the national economy. 



Sheep Husbandry Improves the Land. Next in importance 

 are the relations of sheep husbandry to an improved system of 

 agriculture. These considerations apply much less to the simply 

 pastoral husbandry, like that of California and Texas, than to 

 sheep culture pursued as a branch of a mixed husbandry. Sheep 

 are the only animals which do not exhaust the land upon which 

 they feed, but permanently improve it. Horned cattle, especially 

 cows in milk, by continued grazing, ultimately exhaust the pas- 

 tures of their phosphates. In England, the pastures of the county 

 of Chester, famous as a cheese district, are only kept up by the 

 constant use of bone-dust. Sheep, on the other hand, through 

 the peculiar nutritiousness of their manure, and the facility with 

 which it is distributed, are found to be the most economical and 

 certain means of constantly renewing the productiveness of the 

 land. Mr. Mechi, the most famous of the living scientific fiirmers 

 of England, estimates that fifteen hundred sheep folded on an acre 

 of land for twenty-four days, or one hundred sheep for fifteen 

 days, would manure the land sufficiently to carry it through four 

 years' rotation. In the counties of Dorsetshire and Sussex, where 

 the Down ewes are fed in summer on the hill grass, during the 

 day, and at night are folded on the arable without food, the value 



