194 



BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



the Belgian cloth industry is characterized by its cheapness, and 

 the use of the weakest and cheapest of foreign wools, which are 

 sure to betray themselves in the fabrics. 



The wool manufacture of the United States is conspicuously 

 dependent upon our domestic wool production. It was hardly 

 established until the introduction and rapidly increased culture of 

 the Spanish merino in the decade of 1810 and 1820. It was modi- 

 fied by the introduction of the Saxon sheep in 124-26, and still 

 again by subsequent changes in the general character of American 

 wools. The two branches of the wool industry have always step- 

 ped together, though unconsciously, quickened or retarded by the 

 same general influences. As the flocks spread in the new States, 

 the mills were planted in their midst, — not clustered in a few cen- 

 tres as in Europe, but broadly scattered, like sheep feeding in a 

 wide pasture. In the State of Ohio, the first of the wool pro- 

 ducing States, there are in present operation 261 sets of woollen 

 machinery distributed among 187 mills, and these mills distributed 

 among 157 counties of the State. Some of the other Western 

 States, all of which are eminently wool-growing States, have estab- 

 lishments and sets of machinery as follows : 



All these mills use, exclusively, American wool, and almost 

 universally the wool produced in their immediate neighborhood. 

 It would be safe to say, that not one of these mills would have 

 been established but for the contiguous flocks, and that, if forced 

 to seek imported wool, each one would stop. 



The gain to the manufacturer and wocl-grower from the con- 

 tiguity of the flocks to the mill, and the mills to the consumer, is 



