224 State Board of Agriculture, &c. 



ply, wool declined, Meetiza at least forty per cent,, and sheep 

 in South America from two dollars to fifty cents per head. 

 In 1866, under the low duties on wool, 36,760 bales were 

 imported into the United States from Buenos Ayres and the 

 Cape of Good Hope alone. 



In 1867, under the joint tariff of growers and manufac- 

 turers, 30,175 bales less. What a commentary upon its 

 efficiency ! Yet cavilers say " what good did your alliance 

 do, or your wool growers' association either ^ " This comes 

 now even, from the lips of startled politicians or their sat- 

 ellites, as an argument against any association whatever for 

 farmers. Well enough for a few aspirants for office to 

 secretly band themselves together in a " close coinmunion 

 conclave," to feel one another's pulse or " scratch one 

 another's backs," as the case may be, a la Tweed ; but for 

 farmers, oh ! no, they had better attend to their farming. 



But didn't it do good *: It stayed the tide of import, as 

 we see, and and reduced the pri(;e of wool so low in Austra- 

 lia and South America that it would not pay the cost of 

 shearing and carting to the sea coast. " Millions of sheep 

 were slaughtered there for their pelts," a condition of things 

 80 improbable that it had not been provided for in the tariff 

 of '67, and under a provision to admit Angora goat skins 

 for manufacture into mats, they were imported into this 

 country with three years' growth of wool on, at the specific 

 duty of three cents per pound, thereby creating, as it were, 

 a new trade, one that looked disastrous to wool growers at 

 first, for it depressed the price of wool, and delayed the con- 

 sumption of the great surplus already on our market. Sec • 

 ond thought, however, gave it new light and promise — fleeces 



