[284] 



WOOL AND MUTTON. 



Mr. James Geddes, of New York, has recently written 

 the following interesting communication, which we find 

 going the rounds of the press. There are many facts de- 

 tailed in this letter to which our farmers may wish to refer 

 in the future : 



In 1836 our production of wool was 12,000,000 pounds; in 1860 it had 

 increased to 60,000,000. The extra demand for cloth occasioned by the 

 war, and the protective tariff, so stimulated this industry that, according 

 to the estimates made at Washington in 1867, the annual production had 

 risen to $147,000,000 pounds, and in 1877 to 208,000,000, that is from 1860 

 to 1877, inclusive, the increase was at the rate of 246 per cent, while in 

 the preceding twenty-four years, the increase was about 40 per cent. Since 

 1836 the number of sheep in the old States has constantly declined, and 

 they have now less than one- half the number they had then. The in- 

 crease in the new States and Territories has compensated for this. In 

 1862 Hollister & Dibbles took 400 pure Mercer ewes to California ; since 

 then the production of wool in that State has reached 54,000,000 pounds 

 in one year. Texas, which in 1845 had only native Mexican sheep, by 

 infusing Merino blood, has raised its flocks until they number 4,000,000 

 of animals producing wool, much of it equaling the wool of Ohio. The 

 traditional Southern hatred of sheep, as expressed by John Kandolph, 

 must be dying out when such men as Alexander H. Stephens and Senator 

 Gordon, have embarked in the business of wool growing. 



Since 1809 our improvement in the sheep that produce clothing (fine) 

 wool has been very great. Then 9 J per cent, of unwashed wool to the 

 live weight of the animal was the standard ; in 1865 the best recorded 

 yield was 21 per cent., and the heaviest fleece 27 pounds. Three rams 

 bred since 1873 in Vermont have yielded fleeces averaging 26.3 per cent, 

 of unwashed wool, while the average weight of the fleeces was 34J pounds. 

 The fineness of the fibre equalled that of the Saxon super-electa. Breed- 

 ers of Australia and South America are importing these animals to im- 

 prove their flocks. The Secretary of the National Wool Growers' Asso- 

 ciation has lately taken 200 of our sheep to Japan for the government of 

 that country. We have made equal progress in the production of long- 

 combing wool, or mutton-sheep husbandry. In 1860 a very little long- 

 combing wool was raised in Kentucky and Maryland, but the proprietors 

 of our worsted mills had to go away from home, chiefly to Canada, for 

 2,500,000 to 3,500,000 pounds annually, the impression then being general 

 that these wools could not be grown in this country. Now Ohio, Penn- 

 sylvania, Michigan, Maine and other States are producing, it is estimated, 



