WOOL INDUSTRY. 197 



conviction forced reluctantly upon our foreign visitors as to the 

 power of America to supply its own markets, was due no less to 

 the evidences of our command of raw material than to the proofs 

 of our ingenuity and skill in fabrication. 



Before dismissing tliis branch of our subject, we ought to answer 

 the question which will naturally occur to many, — What reason is 

 there for the alleged superiority of American wools ? The answer 

 is not difficult. All experts in wool fibre recognize that there are 

 well-marked characteristic qualities in the wools of different na- 

 tions, even when produced from the same races. The American 

 wools, to which we have referred, are those of the merino race, 

 which are our principal product. Their superiority is due in the 

 first place to a physical cause, — our characteristically dry climate. 

 Prof. Sanson, an eminent French authority, has shown that a dry 

 climate is indispensable for the health or successful culture of 

 merino sheep, and that even the will of Napoleon failed to make 

 the merino sheep successful in the moist or oceanic climates. The 

 second and most important cause is a moral one. In all other 

 parts of the world, the flocks of merino sheep are tended by hire- 

 ling shepherds. In this country, as a rule, the farmer is his own 

 shepherd, and the flocks are usually so small that they can receive 

 the closest supervision. Not without an eye to thrift, but in part 

 influenced by a morality which is of Puritan heritage, the Ameri- 

 can farmer would sooner starve himself than his animals. Regu- 

 lar and abundant feeding makes healthy sheep, and strong and 

 uniform fibre ; that is, without the weak spots caused by an occa- 

 sional deficiency of food. Thus the high quality of American 

 wools is due mainly to the moral habits of our farming population. 



Part of the Wool Manufacture. We have thus far consid- 

 ered only the relations of the agricultural branch of the wool 

 industry to our national economy. We have yet to consider the 

 wool industry as a branch of the mechanical, chemical, and indus- 

 trial arts, or, in other words, the relations of the manufacture of 

 wool to the State. The common sentiment of the civilized nations 

 of the present day that, next to the preservation of liberty and 

 justice, the highest duty and crowning glory of a nation is the 

 acquisition of the industrial arts, is pronounced by the interna- 

 tional expositions of the last half century. It will be affirmed 

 with enthusiasm by the eight million visitors to the Centennial, 

 who have returned delighted, instructed, and inspired, as it were, 



