8 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



is 1167,843,000, classified as follows: Horses, 596,000, valued at 

 172,116,000; milch cows, 952,000, estimated value being |52,836,000; 

 other cattle number 644,000, valued at |18,676,000. There were re- 

 ported at the close of 1915, 46,000 mules in the State, with an esti- 

 mated valuation of |5,868,000. Milch cows have increased one per 

 per cent, over 1914, which is gratifying when it is known that in 1914 

 15,000 cattle, largely milch cows, were slaughtered on account of 

 the epidemic of the foot-and-mouth-disease. There is a slight decrease 

 in the number of horses over the preceding year, owing, doubtless, 

 to the large number being shipped to the battlefields of Europe. 



The number of swine in the State is 1,186,000 valued at |13,974,800. 

 But little change is noticed in this industry, it remaining about the 

 same. In the epidemic of foot-and-mouth-disease in 1914, 13,000 were 

 killed. There is a lamentable decrease in the sheep industry — there 

 being 860,000. In 1900 there were 1,102,000. The Pittsburgh Dis- 

 patch, in an editorial, thus expresses the cause of this alarming de- 

 crease: 



''The very active and alert Department of Agriculture of Penn- 

 sylvania, issues a report which is of importance paramount to mere 

 statistics. The very kernel of it, or the meat and the wool of it, is 

 that mutton-loving dogs, which sleep by day and gorge o'nights, have 

 so preyed on the flocks of those animals most beloved in poesy, both 

 sacred and secular, that farmers are being discouraged from producing 

 for the market the toothsome spring lamb or the mature freshlings 

 which produce fleece more precious than the Golden Fleece of Jason, 

 and meat from times incomputably ancient has been so delightful 

 a thought for the domestic table." 



Here is the beginning and ending of the story of the decline in the 

 sheep industry in Pennsylvania, that at one time was the leading 

 State in the Union in sheep raising. Tlie thousands of prowling 

 and worthless curs that infest the State has brought about this state 

 of aft'airs. Stringent laws should be enacted against the useless 

 dogs, and I would respectfully request your Excellency to impress 

 upon the next Legislature the necessity of passing a measure that 

 will protect this great industry. The tens of thousands of acres 

 of our unoccupied lands Avould be a paradise for sheep raisers and 

 form one of the most valuable assets of the farmer. 



