146 SHREP INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES 



When Mr. Watson conjectured that there would be 1,500 Merino or 

 fine wooled sheep in Berkshire County by 1810, he did not allow full 

 credit for his own efforts in that direction, for, in addition to the pair 

 purchased of Livingston in 1807, he purchased full-bloods both of Liv- 

 ingston and Humphreys in 1808, and then in 1809 procured from Liv- 

 ingston six fine rams to go exclusively to his own flock, which he pur- 

 posed to extend to 3()0 that winter, the greater part of which were 

 selected ewes, exclusive of 50 of the mixed breed of different grades. 

 With these means he had no doubt but in May, 1810, he would have, 

 including outlying flocks cared for by farmers in the vicinity, 1,500 dif- 

 ferent grade Merinos, and that the spread of the Merino flocks would 

 extend with such rapidity as to produce a proportionate increase of the 

 woolen factories for fine cloths. 



Livingston's ideas were quite as sanguine as those of Watson, in fact 

 more so, and in September of this year (1809), when Watson was count- 

 ing on the increase of 6 rams and 350 ewes, Livingston was penning to 

 him a suggestion to rival the Southern States in the production of cot- 

 ton by substituting the value of the cotton by Merino sheep and wool. 

 The idea was a striking one, and thus set forth: 



Fourteen million pounds of cotton (the quantity exported by South. Carolina and 

 Georgia in one year) taking tlie short and long staple together, at the utmost, is not 

 worth more than $5,000,000 at London market. New York and Massachusetts, either 

 of them without any material change in their agriculture, except a substitute of 

 Merino sheep for other sheep, can raise as much wool as shall equal in value the ex- 

 port of cotton. But how easy it would be, once at that point, to double all our Merino 

 flocks, thus leaving a larger quantity of wool than we now have from the same num- 

 ber of sheep for domestic purposes, of fine wool instead of coarse, and all the sur- 

 plus for exportation, or to go into future home manufacture. 



It is unnecessary to say that these expectations never were reached, 

 and for fifty years thereafter "cotton was king," and all the political 

 power of the United States was exercised in its interest. It was, how- 

 ever, no unreasonable dream of Livingston's, for the Boston and New 

 York City papers of the day noted with great interest the numerous 

 articles in the interior papers announcing the wonderful increase of 

 Merinos, and the fact that the wool did not deteriorate, and calling 

 upon the farmers of their respective neighborhoods to care for and im- 

 prove their breed of sheep. 



Nor was Livingston alone in his sanguine calculations. A writer in 

 the Boston Palladium was confident that, as the wars in Spain would 

 ruin the wool industry of that country, the United States could and 

 would fill the demand. He sets out to meet the objections which he 

 had heard against the Merino sheep: (1) That the sheep would prob- 

 ably degenerate, and the wool, in process of time, become little or noth- 

 ing superior to our own, either in quantity or quality; (2) that should 

 that not be the case, yet as the wool increased in quantity the price 

 would be reduced. 



