EAST OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 597 



lation of army cloths, flannels, ami blankets, and wool fell in price. The 

 result was that Merino sheep, which in 18t2-'(>3 were bought at such 

 fabulous prices, were almost worthless, and thousands were pelted and 

 rendered to tallow, at a cost to the purchaser of $1.00 to $1.25 each. The 

 census of 1870 showed about half as many sheep as in 1865. From 

 3,000,000 they had fallen to 1,568,286, and from $2.23 a head to less 

 than $1.00. 



Mr. A. M. Garland, in an address before the State Agricultural Soci- 

 ety in January, 1871, finds other causes for this great decline, addi- 

 tional to those above given. The increased demand for and consequent 

 high price of wool during the war stimulated the increase of flocks by 

 any and every means, of which advantage was taken by the shrewder 

 eastern neighbors, who supplied all aspiring flock masters with diseased 

 and otherwise worthless animals, culled from the flocks of Ohio, Penn- 

 sylvania, and other States. Animals that none but the most profound 

 naturalist would suspect of belonging to the sheep genus found ready 

 purchasers at round prices. Pampered rams, not worth more than the 

 wool upon their backs, were bought at fabulous prices, and allowed to 

 become the sires of lambs that developed in a high degree the worth- 

 lessness of both their sire and dam. But one fate could be in store for 

 such animals, even under the most judicious management; and if, in 

 the hands of unskilled shepherds, they disappeared from pastures and 

 prairies with a celerity equaled only by the suddenness of their advent, 

 there was not much cause for regret, the lesson to the husbandman 

 being worth more than the stock. But a serious evil followed in the 

 wake of this worthless stock. There were in the State large numbers 

 of valuable sheep, that were yearly paying their owners a handsome 

 profit. These, with exceptions few and rare, became diseased by con- 

 tact with infected animals, and to a very damaging extent were rendered 

 unprofitable in conseqence of the increased expense necessary in hand- 

 ling them. The great difficulty and expense necessary in eradicating 

 infectious diseases from large flocks compelled their owners to turn 

 them over to the knife and the shambles. The loss in this direction 

 was serious in the extreme. Another element tending to the discour- 

 agement of wool-growing was the dog, daily consuming what would 

 contbrtably feed and clothe 5,000 families of 5 persons each. 



James T. Dwyer, of Sangamon County, asserts that the Illinois State 

 Agricultural Society unintentionally contributed to depress the value 

 of Merino flocks by inaugurating a system of fleece washings, which 

 showed that selected fleeces gave but from 3 to 6 pounds of clean wool, 

 and that the average shrinkage on all the banner fleeces sent in to be 

 tested in the washtub was nearly two-thirds, or 66 per cent 1 fleece 

 that weighed, unwashed, 24-^r pounds, losing 78J per cent. And Mr. 

 Dwyer added that the Spanish Merino had been to the county and 

 State an agricultural calamity, it having completely supplanted the 

 mutton and long-wooled improved varieties, which, if in such numbers 



