348 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



world so rapid a development of agricultural resources as that 

 which has taken place in North America. Civilization has swept 

 across the United States in an astonishingly short period of time, 

 and we have today here in the middle west an advanced civiliza- 

 tion with stable governments and social institutions that compare 

 favorably with those in countries where civilization has been ad- 

 vancing and progressing for many generations. Now, I am pre- 

 pared to say that if it had not been for the help of the domestic 

 animals in crossing the plains and uninhabited areas of this 

 country, and in utilizing the products of the land, this could not 

 have been accomplished. The domestic animal has been a con- 

 densing machine; he has not only been a condensing machine, but 

 he has been the only means of transportation in the early pioneer 

 days. The beef steer was not only able to fatten himself, but he 

 was able to carry the manufactured product to the market, and 

 it was impossible, in the absence of transportation facilities, for 

 men to develop the country by the production of grain or hay, and 

 we shall always in this country depend upon the domestic ani- 

 mals to market the larger part of our products. And the middle 

 west farmers will always find it necessary to make a large use 

 of domestic animals. It has been demonstrated that under present 

 conditions and present prices of farm products, the only salvation 

 of the American farmer located in the middle west is a large pro- 

 duction of high class animals. 



Now, the history of the domestic sheep in America is one of 

 great interest to every student of breeding problems. Our atten- 

 tion has often been called to the tremendous development which 

 has taken place in machinery during the nineteenth and the begin- 

 ning of the twentieth century. Our attention is called to the loco- 

 motive, the telegraph, the telephone, the steam-boat and other 

 marvelous inventions that have revolutionized our social life, and 

 we are sometimes wont to think that the farmer and the breeder 

 have been behind in this great development; but while these in- 

 ventions have been taking place the farmers have not been idle, 

 and we have in the American Merino sheep in this country one 

 of the most marvelous examples of the influence of man on the 

 development of characters useful to civilized people that has been 

 seen any where else in the world. 



In 1850, the average fleece on the sheep of this country was 

 2.4 pounds. In 1900, the average fleece of sheep in the United 

 States was 6.9 pounds per head. In other words, in the short 

 space of 50 years, the producing power of a sheep, measured by 



