246 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



because the wool it produces does not bring a high enough 

 price in market. Unfortunately, Americans are not mutton 

 eaters, and we cannot value the carcass of a sheep very 

 highly, — its whole merits must rest upon the wool clip. 

 This is a national question, affecting alike the farmers of all 

 sections, and it is to our business interests to investigate it 

 and see it righted. For sixteen years of our history Con- 

 gress imposed a fair protective tariff on wool, with the effect 

 of increasing the wool industries more than all the preced- 

 ing one hundred years. In 1883 Congress reduced the wool 

 tariff, since which a steady decline has taken place in the 

 wool-growing interests of the country, — the decrease from 

 July, 1886, to July, 1887, being three and a half million 

 head ; while the wool we imported in 1886 cost $13,794,213, 

 besides $40,536,509 worth of manufactured woollens. Farm- 

 ers, this should not be. It was not disease that carried off 

 the three and a half million of sheep last year ; neither was 

 it dogs. American dogs, like their masters, only indulge in 

 a mutton diet on special occasions ; they were killed by the 

 tariff. Had this amount of imported wool, and that required 

 for the imported manufactured goods, been grown in this 

 country, and manufactured by American working men and 

 women, in turn fed by American farmers, the business of 

 farming would not show the depression it does to-day. 

 France protects her farmers by fixing the tariff so high on 

 beef, pork and grain, as to make them prohibitory. And 

 while our Congress was discussing the advisability of making 

 raw sugars free, Spain increased her tariff on cereals twenty- 

 five per cent. Ttiere are a host of other minor industries, 

 that, were they protected, would materially help the farmer. 

 We learn that there were over sixteen million dozens of eggs 

 imported last year, mostly from France, free of all duty ; 

 surely a discouraging prospect for all ambitious Yankee 

 hens. The British Provinces send us large quantities of 

 potatoes every year, and I noticed in a recent newspaper an 

 announcement that a cargo of them had just arrived from 

 Scotland, the small import duty being no hindrance. 

 Whether I am right or wrong in my deductions, this is an 

 important question for farmers to consider. Tariff tinkers 

 are busy now, and during the coming session of Congress 



