367 
POPULAR FALLACIES CONCERNING WOOL. 
\ 
In commercial circles, at least, most erroneous views concerning the quality, 
consumption, present supply, and the influence of existing impost laws upon 
present prices, appear to prevail—a few of which are noticed, viz: 
1. That the quality of American wool has deteriorated—lIt has been boldly 
asserted that the dissemination of American Merinoes has been injurious to the 
quality of the wool. The most judiciously bred and carefully housed thorough- 
breds have, indeed, furnished very oily unwashed fleeces, unprofitable to manu- 
facturers on account of the loss in cleansing; but for one of these there are 
scores, if not hundreds of their progeny, whose wool is vastly superior to that 
of their coarse-wooled ancestors, and of that quality most in demand at American 
factories, answering for all except the finest cloths, and of sufficient length to 
become a substitute for combing wools in delaines. This breed has so far affected 
a vast improvement upon the coarse mongrel sheep constituting the great mass 
of flocks of former days. ~ It is not necessary to aftirm this fact before intelligent 
wool growers, but millions of American citizens may be misled by widely pub- 
lished statements of the inferior condition of our wool clip, resulting from crosses 
of American Merinoes upon the sheep of the west. 
2. That domestic wool is inferior to foreign—The very reverse of this 
statement is true. In strength of fibre and durability of fabric our home-grown 
wool is far superior to that which is imported. Every manufacturer who has 
tested the matter will corroborate the statement. Writers in the foreign wool- 
selling interest freely declare that a proportion of foreign wool is necessary for 
mixing with the domestic, and that in its absence the manufacture of the home 
fleeces must decline. The statement is utterly erroneous. The only pretext 
for it is in the adaptation of machinery, in certain factories, to this mixture. 
Every month is removing this mechanical impediment to the supremacy of 
domestic wools. The progress of manufacturers, in this respect, has been 
wonderful the past year. Cotswold and Leicester combing wools are in fact 
scarce, but the deficiency can be easily supplied in a few years, and the inven- 
tion of our manufacturers, impatient of delay, has found an excellent substitute 
in the long fibre of Merino grades, by the aid of changes in the machinery by 
which it is wrought. Very little wool, except carpet grades, which are admitted 
with less duty than the wool grower pays as taxes, is now required by manufac- 
turers from foreign sources. When the broadcloth manufacture shall be extended 
here, a finer Merino will be wanted, and can be supplied without foreign aid. 
3. That we need seventy millions of pounds of foreign wool to supplement the 
domestic supply.—The imports of all wools, in four years of war, were but sixty- 
three millions per year, with six millions of shoddy—in all, more precisely, 
279,183,049 pounds. In 1860 the imports were only half as much, and the 
home product but sixty millions; the actual manufacture but eighty millions. It 
is folly now to talk of sixty or seventy millions deficiency, when the trade is 
suffering from a surfeit of wools and woollens, notwithstanding the decrease of 
imports of wool since the war. (Qn the other hand, there are persons who prefer to 
believe that the domestic wool product is in excess of the demand, a position 
equally unfounded. ; 
4. That the recent law has not benefited wool production and manufacture.—- 
The close of the war found full supplies of woollen goods, and immense stores of 
unused army clothing; and in anticipation of legislation affecting importation, 
nearly as many woollens were introduced, in a single year, as were imported 
during the entire period of the war. In this state of facts, utter annihilation of 
wool growing and manufacturing was only prevented by the operation of the 
law in repressing further importation, and inspiring confidence in the future, 
