CHAPTER X. 



PEOSPEOTS AND PEOPITS OP 'WOOL AND MUTTON 

 PEODUOTION IN THE UNITED STATES. 



The subjoined table of the Prices of Wool, iri one of the 

 principal Wool Markets of the United States, extending 

 througli thirty- eigbt years — through the most disastrous 

 revulsions in the money market and in the prices of all kinds 

 of property — under tariffs which have at one period given 

 excessive protection to our woolen manufactures, and at 

 others abandoned them unaided to the competition of Europe 

 — presents the best proof I possess, nay, the most unan- 

 swerable proof possible, of the steady remunerativeness of 

 wool production. It was prepared for me in 1862, from his 

 own books and those of his predecessors in the same firm, by 

 Geoi-ge Livermore, Esq., of Boston, one of the most eminent 

 wool commission merchants ever in the United States — and 

 his name is an ample guaranty of its accuracy. It has now 

 been published a year, and has circulated throughout the 

 trade without one of its figures being questioned.* I have 

 •added a column to it indicating the tariff laws in force at 

 the different periods, but there is not space here to give 

 even a synopsis of those tariffs.f 



The average and not the extreme prices for each quarter 

 are given, and it will be observed that these are not given 

 strictly by quarters anterior to 1827. 



I have learned, from various reliable sources, that from 

 1800 to 1807, wool bore low prices in our country; that in 

 1807 and 1808 full-blood Merino wool sold for $1 a pound; 

 that in 1809, it rose to about $2 a pound, and so continued 

 through the war against England, commenced in 1812 — some 

 choice lots fetching $2.50 a pound; that when our infant 



* It Teas published in my Eeport on Fine -Wool Husbandry, in 1862; and In 

 the Boston trade publications which would place it in the hands of all the leading 

 wool merchants and mann&cturers. 



t A complete synopsis of them ia given la my Beport on Fine-Wool Husbandry, 



