110 SHEEP INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES 



Americans a race of farmers and foresters to raise raw materials for 

 British manufacturers and naval stores for British shipping, making 

 them depend upon British factories for their clothing and British ships 

 for their trade, was detrimental to American prosperity, humiliating to 

 American pride, and could not continue forever. No nation can raise 

 enough agricultural products to pay for all that it consumes. The 

 American colonies in their highest prosperity could not and did not do 

 it. They never exported to England enough to pay what they bought 

 of her, and made up the difference in money which they received for 

 large quantities of provisions sold to the West Indies, in defiance of 

 the British laws prohibiting such trade. The consequence was an im- 

 poverishment of the colonies, a severe drain on their resources. In 

 1760 the imports ft'om England exceeded $12,000,000; the exports to 

 England amounted to less than $4,000,000. In 1771 the imports were 

 $20,000,000; the exports less than $7,000,000. 



The growing homespun or household industry received a new and 

 healthy impulse through the non-importation agreement entered into 

 just before the outbreak of theEevolution, when great efforts were made 

 to increase the product of wool and other material and to encourage 

 the household economy. A very complete fulling and dyeing establish- 

 ment was nearly completed by Tunis Popham, at Jamaica, Long Island, 

 in 1764, and in October of the same year it was said that a company 

 had established a woolen factory at Hempstead, Long Island, where 

 broadcloths of any color could be supplied equal in quality and cheaper 

 than any imported. But these attempts of Yorkshire weavers to manu- 

 facture broadcloths on Lon g Island did not succeed. It is not supposed, 

 however, that their ill success could be attributed to want of patronage, 

 as it was deemed patriotic then to use articles of domestic prodiict 

 almost exclusively, and in the following year a society was formed in 

 New York to encourage the home manufactures of woolens, the en- 

 thusiastic members of which signed a pledge not to buy imported cloth 

 and not to eat the meat of sheep or lamb. The great want of the 

 country was a supply of wool; and the killing of sheep was discouraged 

 by this society and by public sentiment in order not to diminish the 

 source of supply. Homespun cloth became the rage and continued 

 so for some time, and British imports fell off. 



Most of the colonies now encouraged wool raising and manufacture 

 by local statutes, exempting sheep from taxation, protecting them from 

 dogs, and giving premiums for spinning and weaving. In 1770 the 

 graduating class of Harvard College attended commencement exercises 

 dressed in black cloth of New England manufacture, but this was 

 probably of inferior grade, nothing else than the common domestic 

 cloth made in nearly every family and which formed the staple product 

 of the country for ordinary wear. The woolens made consisted of two 

 kinds, one a strong, coarse, all-wool cloth, three-quarters wide, which 

 was sometimes fulled, but was often worn undyed and undressed; the 



