EAST OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 695 



SUMMARY OF PART I. 



This ends a detailed investigation of the history and present condi- 

 tion of sheep husbandry in States east of the Mississippi Kiver. A few 

 words and figures are presented in the way of general summary and 

 conclusion. 



Up to within a comparat ively recent day the principal aim of sheep 

 husbandry in the section considered was the growth of wool. Mutton 

 was a secondary consideration, and, in general, was not considered at 

 all. But the decreasing profits of wool-growing and the increasing popu- 

 larity of mutton as an article of food in the manufacturing centers and 

 large cities, effected a change in the east forty or fifty years since, and 

 the mutton sheep received some attention; the old native breed and 

 the fine- wooled Merino and its grades were crossed by rams of improved 

 breeds of English sheep. This substitution began in southern New 

 England, eastern New York, eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Dela- 

 ware, Maryland, and Virginia, and in those sections is practically com- 

 plete, mutton being the object of sheep-raising and wool a secondary 

 consideration. Up to 1880 in the country north of the Ohio and west 

 of the Alleghanles wool growing was still the principal object. Within 

 the last ten years western Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michi- 

 gan, and Wisconsin have been repeating what was done by the east 

 many years before, making great changes by replacing the Merino and 

 its grades with English sheep, so that, in 1890, over one-half the sheep 

 between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi River were estimated to 

 be of native or English blood. The change in the two years past in 

 the same direction has been very marked. In all the South Atlantic 

 States, Kentucky and Tennessee, the English mutton sheep, represented 

 by the old native stock and some improved breeds, is vastly predom- 

 inant. Taken as a whole the entire country east of the Mississippi is 

 practically abandoning to the far West and to foreign countries the 

 growing of fine wool, and substituting therefor the raising of sheep 

 for food, and, incidentally, combing wool. This change in the character 

 of the industry has caused increased attention to English breeds of 

 sheep and English methods of sheep husbandry. 



At the beginning of the present century there were in the United 

 States about 5,000,000 sheep, all, with the exception of a few flocks in 

 Louisiana Territory, east of the Mississippi ; in 1810, from 7,000,000 to 

 10,000,000, according to various estimates, yielding from 13,000,000 to 

 15,000,000 pounds of wool; in 1812 the number of sheep had increased 

 about 15 per cent, but the wool clip was about 21,000,000 pounds, or 

 over 50 per cent increase, and of much finer quality than in 1810, 

 owing to increased care and the introduction of the Merino; in 1836 

 there were about 17,000,000 sheep, and in 1840, 19,311,374, producing 

 35,804,114 pounds of wool. In the last named year all but 503,595 

 sheep and 699,530 pounds of wool were produced east of the Missis- 

 sippi. The number of sheep east of the Mississippi from 1840 to 1890 

 is shown in the following table: 



