ARTIODACTYLA 331 



stroying the life of the animal, while from one individual we get sev- 

 eral crops of wool. The world's production of wool in 1925 was 

 estimated at 2,892,416,000 pounds (United States, 301,060,000; Aus- 

 tralia, 735,000,000; Argentina, 2 7 5, 000,000 ). 34 The production in the 

 United States increased from 19,000,000 pounds in 1840 to 

 61,000,000 in 1900. The world production decreased from 

 2,807,000,000 pounds in 1901 to 2,717,000,000 in 1916. In the United 

 States the average annual production from 1905 to 1914 was 

 306,000,000. Some other figures for various countries follow: 35 



Algeria, in 1912 8,000,000 Argentina, 1914 43,000,000 



Australia, 1891 106,000,000 Brazil, 1914 10,000,000 



Brit. So. Africa, 1913 36,000,000 Mexico, 1002 3,000,000 



Canada, 1917 2,000,000 New Zealand, 1917 25,000,000 



Uruguay, 1908 26,000,000 Russia, 1914 80,000,000 



There were 64,000,000 sheep in the United States in 1903 and only 

 28,000,000 in 1922, a decrease of 43 per cent in 19 years, with steadily 

 increasing population, so that we now produce only one-half the wool 

 necessary to supply our own demand. 36 Among the reasons given for 

 the decrease are that the eastern farm sheep cannot compete with west- 

 ern open-range sheep ; that values have been too low, and parasites and 

 diseases too prevalent, for profitable sheep-raising; and that depreda- 

 tions of sheep-killing dogs, coyotes and other predacious animals cause 

 too great losses. Dog-and-wolf-proof fences may be constructed of 60- 

 inch woven wire, set 3 inches above the ground, with a barbed wire 

 close to the ground, and another offset a few inches on the outside, 

 above the top, to prevent the animals from climbing over; or of 32- 

 inch wire with several barbed wires above, set 5 inches apart up to 

 60 inches, the uppermost offset. 37 The dog and coyote hazards in sheep- 

 raising, methods of their control, and laws concerning sheep-killing 

 dogs, have been discoursed upon in Chapters vn, xxvi and xxvu. 



Sheep feed upon many kinds of herbaceous plants, besides grass. 

 They also browse upon leaves and twigs of shrubs, but not to the same 

 extent as goats do. In many places in the semi-arid portions of the 

 western United States, overgrazing has seriously injured sheep ranges. 

 There were in the world in 1927 about 240,003,000 sheep, and in the 

 United States about 4i,9O9,ooo, 38 an increase over the estimate for 



1925- 



84 N ew York World Almanac for 1925, p. 376. 



36 Holmes, Wool: Production, foreign trade, supply and consumption, Yearbook 

 U. S. Dept. Agric. for 1917, pp. 401-424. 



** Coll, Sheep-killing dogs, Farmers' Bull., No. 1268, p. 2, 1922. 



87 Lantz, Coyotes in their economic relations, U. S. Biol. Surv. Bull. No. 20, 1905. 



88 New York World Almanac for 1928, p. 371. 



