86 SHEEP HUSBANDRY IN THE SOUTH. 



Buenos Ayres, Africa, Turkey, &c., to enter our ports under a merely 

 nominal duty. The present Tariff raised the duty on these wools to six 

 times the former rate, /. c, on wools costing 7 cents, from 3|- mills to 2 cents 

 and 1 mill per pound. This will make an important difference to the for- 

 eign grower and exporter. If these wools continue, as hitherto, to be im- 

 ported in the grease and dirt, from which state they lose about half weight 

 in being brought as clean as well washed United States wool, every pound 

 of them so imported will actually pay a double duty, or 4 cents and 2 mills, 

 half of this being paid for dirt. If, on the other hand, they are washed 

 prior to exportation, a reduction of 50 per cent, in their weight will call 

 for a corresponding advance in their price. Wool now costing 7 cents at 

 Buenos Ayres or Smyrna, will cost 14 cents ; and if this is exported into 

 the United States, it must pay a duty of 30 per cent., or 4 cents and 2 

 mills per pound. It will be seen, therefore, that the lowest priced foreign 

 wools cannot enter our country without paying about this duty (4 cents) 

 per pound, unless under fraudulent invoices ; and this, as has been already 

 shown, is half the cost of producing wool throughout a region of the United 

 States much greater in extent than all that portion of South America in- 

 cluded within the wool-growing zone. 



The English duty on wools costing less than 24 cents is 1 cent per 

 pound ; over 24 cents, 2 cents per pound. The French duty is 22 per 

 cent, ad valorem, without regard to cost. 



The security of life and property is far less in Buenos Ayres than in the 

 United States ; the character of the agricultural population less industri- 

 ous, less skillful, and less methodical. Capitalists from other countries 

 may, on account of the cheapness of the lands, make it profitable to pur- 

 chase large estancias, and raise vast flocks of sheep ; and this has already 

 been done by a few Europeans. But the pampas are subject to the same 

 general objections* with the North American prairies, and when the con- 

 tagious diseases, adverted to in speaking of the latter, once obtain a foot- 

 ing on them, it is not difficult to predict how those diseases will be en- 

 countered by the wild and, so far as agricultural labor is concerned, indo- 

 lent Gaucho. The difficulty of encountering them, with the best skill and 

 industry, under such circumstances — of preventing their unlimited spread, 

 constant return and frightful mortality, on plains without inclosures, where 

 flocks have access to each other, or straggling sheep from one flock are 

 liable, by every-day casualties, to be thrown among those of another flock 

 — has been stated. 



It is not improbable that while land remains so low, and the sheep 

 healthy, the actual cost of production in Buenos Ayres will be somewhat 

 less than in the United States ; but taking all things into consideration, and 

 looking to the future, I would sooner advise any one, even in an exclu- 

 sively economical point of view, to purchase the cheap lands of our own 

 Southern States for the objects of Sheep Husbandry, than any part of 

 South America. With the present duty and the cost of transportation 

 against the latter, there is no fear that it can undersell, in our markets, 

 the pi'oduce of the former. The 7-cent South Amei"ican wools, washed, 

 will cost 14 cents, and washing will add about 1 cent a pound to the cost.t 

 Add another cent for agent's commission, and also the U. S. duty, and the 

 wool is brought to 20 cents a pound, independent of freight and insurance, 

 which will carry it, I should think, to about two shillings. The United 

 States producer can furnish wool of much better quality than the coarse 

 South Amei"ican article, at this price, and realize a high profit. 



* Unless it be climatic ones. On this point I hnve no infonnation. 



t This will be attended with much trouble on large portions of the pampas, as on our prairies. 

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