WEST OP THE MISSISSIPPI EIVER. 807 



and Kansas. Mutton slieep have advanced from $2.50 to $3.50, and 

 even more is asked for nice jjicked feeders. The number of sheep in 

 the Territory for the past year or two has not materially changed, and 

 there, perhaps, will not be mucli change in this respect for the next year 

 or two. 



TJtali depends largely upon outside demands for her wool product. 

 There are not far from 100,000 sheep consumed for mutton within her 

 borders. Salt Lake City will use half of that number in a year. Then 

 from 500,000 to 600,000 will be shipped and driven out of the Territory 

 for mutton or to feed. As previously stated, a large demand has lately 

 sprung up for lambs for the Eastern mutton market, and while sheepmen 

 areloatli to part with them, the prices of $1.50 to $2.25 per head will 

 secure from 50,000 to 75,000 head this year. It is believed that the 

 prices will not go lower. A large number of owners have determined 

 to feed and fatten their own mutton and ship to market themselves. 

 Corn and oats are too scarce and high, priced to feed profitably, yet these 

 men say that does not matter, as they have a cheaper and much better 

 feed in alfalfa — that it will not take many tons of it to fatten a thousand 

 sheep for market, and that they can compete successfully with those in 

 Nebraska who feed corn or oats, or both. This means the opening of a 

 new and profitable branch of the business, and will stimulate the farm- 

 ers to grow more than 300,000 tons of alfalfa a year to supply the in- 

 creased demand made by the sheep-feeders alone. It also means that 

 hereafter more alfalfa will be fed during the bad weather in winter to the 

 common stock sheep throughout the Territory where before no feed was 

 given. Thus we see a very great change for the better in the near 

 future. The business will be more settled, will be placed on a firmer 

 basis, and be more profitably conducted in every way. 



It is not a very easy matter to get at the exact amount of the 1892 

 wool clip of Utah, but it will be found to run close to 13,500,000 pounds. 

 Of this amount there are worked up by Utah mills at least 1,000,000 

 pounds. The largest and most extensive woolen factory in the Terri- 

 tory is the Provo Woolen Mills, established nearly twenty years ago 

 at Provo. These mills have a capital stock of $300,000, and consume 

 annually 500,000 pounds of Utah wool. They manufacture flannels, 

 linseys, cassimeres, blankets, shawls, yarns, overshirts, underwear, 

 knit hosiery, etc. The next mill of importance is that of the Deseret 

 Woolen MiUs Company, at Salt Lake City, which has a capacity of 

 350,000 to 400,000 pounds of wool per year. These are the two princi- 

 pal woolen mills, yet there are several other smaller on^s. It would 

 seem that there is a good opening in the Territory for other woolen 

 factories, for they can evidently take the wool product as it comes from 

 the grower and work it up as cheaply as any of the factories in the 

 East, and have the expense of transporation a long distance in their 

 favor. 



The prices realized on the clip of 1890 were even a little better than 



