FINE WOOL 8HEEP HUSBANDRY. 151 



This system operates most injuriously on the pro- 

 ducers of the best and cleanest wools who do not live 

 near good markets. The maximum price is a Pro- 

 crustean bed to which they must be cut off, though 

 their neighbor has been stretched to its length ! If 

 they refuse to sell when all their neighbors are selling, 

 they have reason to fear no more buyers will come in 

 to pick up half a dozen scattering small lots in a 

 whole county. So they often reluctantly succumb 

 and get only two or three cents more on the pound 

 than other men whose wool is fifteen per cent, coarser 

 and fifteen per cent, dirtier. This soon drives them 

 out of wool-growing or into growing coarse, dirty 

 wools. 



I fear that the manufacturer has looked with rather 

 more toleration on this system, because sometimes 

 perhaps lie thus gets enough good wool under price to 

 offset over payments on bad and dirty wools. How- 

 ever this may be, one thing is certain, that if he con- 

 tinues to permit the sacrifice of friends for the benefit 

 of enemies, he will within a few years not have 

 enough of the former left to keep up the present equi- 

 poise in his over and under payments. The soap 

 sheep, as they should be called, are rapidly spreading 

 everywhere ; and farmers seem to wash their wool 

 more and more poorly. 



Am I asked what practical remedy can be adopted ? 

 It is not easy to point it out. But I have always 

 believed that if each manufacturer would select his re- 

 gions for purchase, buy in those regions every year, and 

 employ a few trusty and experienced travelling or 

 local agents tied down by no maximum price which 

 disregards quality and condition, instructed to buy 



