96 DEMAND AND SUPPLY OP WOOL. 



Will this steady demand and these remunerating prices 

 last? Here again the facts and figures of the past afford the 

 most trustworthy answer. The table on preceding page was 

 prepared for me in 1862, hy the acting Register of the 

 Treasury. 



It is thus made to appear that during the twenty-two 

 years which preceded the present war, our imports of unman- 

 ufactured wool exceeded our exports of the home-grown 

 article in the value of $44,514,771, or upwards of two 

 millions a year; and that during the same period, our 

 imports of manufactured wool exceeded our exports of 

 domestic manufactured wool in the value! of $429,422,951, or 

 upwards of nineteen millions a year ! 



There have been during the above period several 

 "manias," as they have been termed, as strong as that of 

 1862-'63, to increase wool production in our country; yet, 

 in spite of all contemporary predictions to the contrary, we 

 see how utterly they failed in every instance to bring up, 

 even temporarily, the supply to the demand. When every 

 circumstance is taken into accoimt, there cannot be a 

 reasonable doubt entertained, that the United States can 

 permanently furnish its own markets with a full supply of 

 wool more cheaply than other countries can furnish it. I have 

 not space here for the numerous facts and statistics which 

 go to prove this assertion ; nor is there need of it, they 

 have been so fully set forth and discussed in a multitude 

 of popular publications, particularly in those invaluable 

 disseminators of information, our Agricultural Journals. 

 Indeed, we might even compete with other countries in 

 supplying wool to Europe. And yet, with such facts staring 

 us in the face, there are so many other demands for capital, 

 labor and enterprise in our country, that we continue and 

 are likely to continue, no one can say how long, vast 

 importers of one of the prime necessaries of life ! 



Sheep are not only the most profitable animals to 

 depasture the cheap lands of our country — the mountain 

 ranges of the South, and the vast plaius of the West and 

 South-west — but they are also justly beginning to be 

 considered an absolute necessity of good farming on our 

 choice grain -growiug soUs, where wheat, clover seed, etc., 

 are staples. 



I may be permitted to quote the two following paragraphs 

 from my Report on Fine -Wool Husbandry, 1862: — '"Sheep 

 would be more profitable than cows on a multitude of the 



