244 SHEEP INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES 



of wool per head, and the average price of wool in 1 865 reached 76 cents 

 per pound. Up to 1860 fine wool was the wool for the market, but the 

 war called for army goods made of coarse grade wool of long staple, 

 and from all the lots coming into the hands of dealers the fleeces pos- 

 sessing these qualities were carefully selected and a high price obtained 

 for them. At the same time the demand for the iinest grades was 

 good, but the demand for the medium grades was not so good. The 

 two extremes, the long coarse and the fine, commanded the highest 

 prices. After the war the worsted manufacture revived and a demand 

 grew up for another grade of wool, a combing wool, and these wools 

 commanded the highest prices in 1868 and 1869. The chief character- 

 istics of combing wool are a long, moderately fine staple of strong fiber. 

 Massachusetts but feebly supplied wool of any kind. Her sheep dimin- 

 ished rapidly from 169,442 in 1865 to 58,773 in 1875, and to 55,140 in 

 1885, producLQg only 44,000 pounds of fine wool and 213,000 pounds of 

 coarse wool. 



The decrease in flne-wooled sheep was very marked, and so indeed 

 was that of the coarse- wooled. The great capacity of the West for the 

 production of fine wool, with free lands on which to feed their sheep, 

 and means of transportation, rendered competition out of the question ; 

 on the other hand, the increased consumption of mutton and lamb at 

 the East developed coarse and middle-wooled sheep husbandry by 

 which the market was supplied with choice meat and the manufacturer 

 with combing and delaine wool. Franklin County, in 1880, made more 

 than one-fourth of all the mutton produced in the State, and its fat 

 lambs, nearly 10,000 of them, outnumbered those of any other county. 

 Its sheep husbandry may be taken as the type of that of the State. 

 Here the Downs are taken as the basis of the business of keeping 

 sheep, raising early lambs, and making mutton. Southdowns are pre- 

 ferred. Shropshire or Oxford Down rams, when they can be had, 

 crossed iu add size and wool without detracting from the splendid 

 mutton qualities, aptitude to fatten, quiet disposition, and perfection 

 of form for the butcher, with tendency to twins, and great capacity for 

 milk found in properly bred Southdowns. Many of the farmers like to 

 take a cross of Cotswold, Leicester, or Lincoln for size of carcass and 

 length of staple in the fleece. For a good strong pasturage the Cots- 

 wold was thought to be the best sheep for wool and mutton. The 

 grades grew to good size, made early lambs, and yielded a good carcass 

 of mutton and had a heavy fleece of a fair quality of combing wool. 

 But the capacity of the pastures generally was not suflacient to carry 

 so heavy a sheep as the Cotswold. They deteriorated on light pastur- 

 age. A class of large graded Merinos, supposed to be from the French, 

 was held in much esteem by some, as producing large lambs with more 

 fleece. James S. Griunell, who made the annual report on live stock 

 to the Massachusetts Board of Agriculture in 1880, says: 



Unwise, thriftless, aud stupid as lias been the course of many of onr farmers to quit 

 entixely a paying and pleasant branch of farming if judiciously conducted, "the few 



