490 SHEEP INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES 



In 1853 Gen. Goe's heaviest rani's fleece was 24 pounds; in 1880 it was 

 35 J pounds, a gain in twenty- seven years of nearly 50 per cent. In 1859 

 his ewe fleeces, unwashed, averaged Sf- Q pounds each; in 1880 they 

 averaged 15|J pounds, a gain in twenty-one years of 85.91 per cent. 



This flock was a great colonizer. From it went pure-blood sheep into 

 adjoining counties and States; many of the best sheep in Ohio and 

 Wisconsin trace their origin to it, and in 1876 two lots were sold to go 

 to Australia, 10 rams and 25 ewes. Gen. Goe took a great interest in 

 his sheep and in sheep husbandry; was a frequent contributor to the 

 agricultural press, and persistent in setting forth the value of sheep 

 both for the flesh and wool they gave and as renovators of worn-out 

 lands. 



But the most noted locality for fine wool-growing in western Penn- 

 sylvania is the county of Washington, in the southwestern corner of 

 the State. The Eev. Colin McFarquhar, a Scotch minister, who settled 

 in Lancaster County in 1776, visited Washington County in the begin- 

 ning of the present century, when there was no wheel-road across the 

 Allegheny Mountains, and when all transportation was done by pack 

 horses. He often spoke of the hills as reminding him of his own Scot- 

 tish land and of the goodness of a kind Providence in placing these 

 hills in just the place for fine wools, saying that the flat lands of the 

 east were not suitable. He often remarked to Mr. Alexander Eeed, 

 " I'll ne'er live to see it; you may ne'er live to see it; but your children 

 will live to see these hills white with sheep." At that time it looked as 

 if this prophecy would only be fulfilled in the most remote future, if at 

 all; the country was then a dense forest, with more wolves and other 

 wild animals than sheep. Asa reason for his faith he said, u Your 

 wheat and your flour will not bear the cost of transportation ; 200 pounds 

 of flour, worth perhaps $5 or $6, will cost as much for transportation as 

 200 pounds of wool, worth $100." Mr. Eeed lived to see the prophecy 

 fulfilled, and to see millions of pounds of wool and thousands of fat 

 sheep sent every year to the Eastern markets. 



In 1880 Washington County had more than one-fourth of the sheep, 

 and raised more than one-fourth of all the wool grown in the State. 

 This county, with the adjoining counties of Greene and Allegheny in 

 the same State, and of Hancock, Brooke, Ohio, arid Marshall in the 

 '< Panhandle" of West Virginia, is justly celebrated as one of the best 

 wool-producing districts of the United States, and as the special home 

 of some of the finest types of the Merino sheep. The tenacious limestone 

 loam of the valleys, very productive in grasses of all kinds, the hillsides 

 covered with blue grass to their very summits, the best of water, and a 

 climate not excelled anywhere, have favored the production of a class 

 of wool that for excellence for manufacturing purposes has no superior 

 in the country. For over fifty years this section of country has been 

 the nursery whence many of the fine-wooled sheep now grazing western 

 fields were propagated, and many as fine flocks as can be found in the 



