94 THE BEEF BONANZA. 



world 1,706,000,000. The enormous value of this 

 wool is shown by the fact that in one year Australia 

 exported £30,000,000 sterling worth of wool, or about 

 $150,000,000 in gold, and for ten years past her trade 

 has been steadily increasing. Those unfamiliar with 

 Australia can never estimate the importance of such a 

 country and the effect produced upon it by an enormous 

 wool trade. It is the asylum for broken-down Eng- 

 lishmen, and in a few years they grow rich in sheep, 

 and generally return to the Continent to live at their 

 ease. Wool gives the principal prosperity to Australia, 

 and she now has cities larger than New Orleans with a 

 trade greater than Boston, Baltimore, Pittsburg, Cleve- 

 land, Buffalo, or Detroit. Melbourne ten or fifteen 

 years ago had a population of 170,000 souls, and 

 Sydney was as important. 



In the production of the world's wool the United 

 States makes rather a mean figure with its 100,000,000 

 pounds, and it is most encouraging to wool-growers to 

 know we are oftentimes still heavy importers. In 

 1870 we imported wool and woollens to the value of 

 $42,229,385; and the year before, while we exported 

 $82,238,773 worth of breadstuffs, we sent out only 

 $315,881 worth of wool, — not enough to pay the duty 

 on our imported playing-cards. All our breadstuffs 

 cost three-fifths of their value to lay them down at the 

 sea-coast, and it may seem strange that our producers 

 do not raise more wool and less grain. This, however, 

 has its explanation in the fact that on small farms in 

 the East, where population is dense, farmers are com- 

 pelled to raise clover for animal food, and sheep are 



