896 SHEEP INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES 



from 3,000 to 5,000 feet in the Pan Handle and Staked Plain, and that 

 part of the State about El Paso. The rivers have their rise here and 

 flow southeast to the Gulf of Mexico. 



The eastern portion of the State is known as the timber belt, the 

 central portion as the grain belt, and the west, with its diversified 

 topography, is the great grazing section. The wool-producing region 

 is mainly in the west half of the State, south of the Texas Pacific Kail- 

 road, although sheep -raising is carried on in a number of counties lo- 

 cated in the grain belt. 



The climate of Texas is particularly favorable for sheep husbandry. 

 Sheep feed out the whole year, and shelter is the exception rather than 

 the rule. The cost of keeping in winter is not much in excess of that 

 during the summer months. The temperature is even ; sudden changes 

 rarely occur. The nights in summer are uniformly cool. In the cen- 

 tral and southwestern portions of the State it is rarely that the ther- 

 mometer records a fall below 20. The Signal Service reports show 

 that for a series of years the average number of days in winter at San 

 Antonio when the mercury goes below the freezing point is 14. The 

 average number of clear and fair days during the year at the same 

 place is 287. The statistics of climate at this point are fairly expressive 

 of most of the wool-producing area of Texas, except in the higher alti- 

 tudes. 



There are two hundred organized and forty-five unorganized coun- 

 ties in Texas. Sheep are raised in one hundred and eighty-three organ- 

 ized counties of the State, and last year the unorganized counties 

 reported 500,000 sheep for taxation purposes. The counties of Brazoria 

 and Wood report the lowest number. The counties which reported 

 less than 1,500 each last year were Archer, Austin, Bastrop, Brazoria, 

 Caldwell, Calhoun, Camp, Collin, Colorado, Fort Bend, Galveston, 

 Gregg, Guadalupe, Hardin, Henderson, Jackson, Liberty, Marion, 

 Montague, Montgomery, Ochiltree, Orange, Rock wall, San Jacinto, San 

 Patricio, Somervell, Trinity, Tyler, Upshur, and Wood. The counties 

 which lead in the production of sheep are in the order named as fol- 

 lows: Webb, Encinal, Duval, Starr, Valverde, Maverick, McCulloch, 

 Kinney, and Uvalde. Each of these counties reported in excess of one 

 hundred thousand head to the comptroller of the State for taxation in 

 1889. The counties which reported in excess of fifty thousand head were 

 Bosque, Kimble, Sutton, Zapata, Nueces, La Salle, Bandera, Edwards, 

 Hamilton, Coryell, Menard, Tom Green, San Saba, Coleman, Crockett, 

 Kerr, Mitchell, Williamson, Concho, Burnet, Runnels, and Lampasas. 



There are three things that the flockrnasters of Texas as well as the 

 other range States and Territories need, and they are stringent laws, 

 rigidly enforced, to eradicate the scab and to exterminate wild ani- 

 mals that are destroying the flocks. In addition to these necessary 

 State laws reasonable protection against competing foreign wools 

 should be afforded by the General Government. Let these things be 

 assured and the sheep industry would receive an impetus that in a few 



