10 



aggregate is a most important contribution to the comfort and in- 

 dustry of the people. In 1870 there were nearly 30 millions of 

 sheep in the United States, and the wool production in that year 

 amounted to 120 million pounds, estimating the average weight of 

 the fleeces at 4 pounds each. The value of this wool in the farm- 

 ers' hands would reach at the lowest estimate, $40,000,000. But so 

 far from being anywhere equal to the demand for this staple, the 

 supply was less than our yearly needs by a quantity equal to a 

 value of more than $40,000,000, and wool to this amount is annu- 

 ally imported from foreign countries. Besides this in wool, there 

 is annually imported with it the value of $20,000,000 in foreign la- 

 bor, which has been expended in manufacturing wool into cloth 

 and other woolen goods. Our own necessities, therefore, demand 

 an increase in the supply of wool equal to our present production. 

 This wool, if produced here, would not only use up a large quan- 

 tity of corn now. thrown upon the markets of the world, and 

 therefore enhance the value of that which would remain for dis- 

 posal ; but its manufacture into cloths and goods would employ a 

 large number of persons who are now engaged in raising agricul- 

 tural products for sale, and are therefore in active competition 

 with other farmers. The encouragement of sheep cultivation, 

 therefore, has a national importance, and is a subject which bears 

 directly upon the interests of farmers. To increase the wool pro- 

 duct to a par with the necessities of the country at the present 

 time, would alone involve the passage through their hands of 

 '$60,000,000 yearly an immense sum, which now goes into the 

 pockets of foreigners, instead of those of our own people. 



The scope for an increase in our wool product is comparatively 

 boundless. A full third of the territory of the United States is a 

 grand sheep pasture of the most favorable character. Vast plains 

 bearing abundance of the most nutritious herbage, in the most 

 healthful climate, and the very best conditions for the profitable 

 breeding of fine and middle wool sheep, and which are valueless 

 for any other than pastoral purposes, stretch from the 100th me- 

 ridian for 500 miles west to the Rocky Mountains, and from north 

 to south for 1,500 miles. In addition to this vast tract, upon which 

 a hundred million sheep could feed and thrive with ease, there are 

 immense mountain ranges, extensive valleys, and again beyond 

 these, great plains, altogether covering a still larger area, of which a 

 great portion is admirably fitted for the pasturing of sheep. With 

 so great a scope for the cheap production of wool, it seems to be 

 a strange thing, that instead of exporting largely of this staple, as 

 we might and should do, the United States on the contrary is one 



