564 SHEEP INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES 



The mixed blood includes Southdowns, Leicesters, Lincolnshire^ and 

 grades, and are most numerous in Ashland, Ashtabula, Fulton, High- 

 land, Lucas, Pickaway, Scioto, Stark, and Van Wert counties. The 

 Cotswolds predominate in Preble, Mahoning, Clermont, and Auglaize; 

 the Oxfords are confined to few counties, and the Shrop shires are gen- 

 erally diffused and are in greater proportion in Auglaize, Columbiana, 

 Hamilton, Montgomery, Trumbull, and Wayne. Those counties having 

 over 70 per cent of Merino and Merino grades are Adams, Athens, 

 Brown, Belmont, Carroll, Clinton, Crawford, Erie, Guernsey, Harrison, 

 Henry, Holmes, Jefferson, Licking, Logan, Madison, Marion, Meigs, 

 Monroe, Morgan, Ottawa, Seneca, Tuscarawas, and Wyandot. Harri- 

 son County still retained 90 per cent of the Merino in her flocks, includ- 

 ing some Saxony, and Jefferson had 85 per cent. The American or 

 Spanish Merino was in the lead, but many were breeding the Black-Top, 

 thinking them the more hardy and not so liable to be affected with foot- 

 rot. 



What can be done by legislation can also be undone by legislation. 

 The tariff of 1867 came, it is claimed, in time to save the Merino flocks. 

 The revision of that tariff in 1883 is claimed to have been a great blow 

 to Ohio's wool industry and to that of the whole country. Wool in 1880 

 began to decline, and had fallen from 6 to 10 cents in 1883, when the act 

 was passed, and it declined still more in the years succeeding. Low 

 prices of wool decreased the number of sheep from 5,089,363 in 1883 to 

 3,605,069 in 1889. The ultra protectionists for wool declared that the 

 industry was ruined, and the grower, sometimes without calculation, 

 sold off his flocks and tried horses and cattle. Sheep almost went beg- 

 ging, and as late as 1888 good grades were disposed of in some of the 

 central counties for $2 per head, which were worth $5 per head two 

 years later. The fine-wool flocks were the sufferers in 1883. The decline 

 of wool and the uncertainties of legislation, combined with the increas- 

 ing demand for mutton, convinced many farmers of Ohio that wool- 

 growing could be made to pay only when combined with raising mutton. 

 It was discovered that it was an extremely difficult matter to keep one 

 eye on a Congressman in Washington and the other eye on a flock of 

 sheep in Ohio, and the reasonable conclusion was that it was better to 

 raise a sheep that was self-protecting than to depend upon legislation for 

 protection. Consequently those breads were selected which could raise 

 a good carcass as well as shear a good fleece. The Cotswold came in for 

 a good share of this change. The lambs of this breed are strong, often 

 come twins, and the ewes are better mothers than the Merinos. Their 

 lambs can be secured early in the spring, even as early as February if 

 kept in warm quarters, and when grass comes can subsist upon it. In 

 three to four months they will be ready for market at $4 to $6 per head. 

 Two lambs from a single ewe, together with her wool clip, afford a very 

 fair profit more than can be made from the Merino alone. A cross 

 between the Cotswolds and the Merinos has advantages. It combines 



