SHEEP-FARMING IN THE WEST. 97 



ten months in the year, export 100,000,000 pounds of 

 wool annually. It is there the celebrated "mestiza" 

 is grown, from which the finest cloth is made, and so 

 great is the demand for it that not over one-twentieth 

 of what is needed is produced. The whole of the 

 interior of Australia is a high table-land, where little 

 rain falls, and from thence comes the fine fibre me- 

 rino wool, from which French broadcloths^ and French 

 merinos are manufactured. New Zealand, much the 

 same as Australia, gives us the delaine wools. The 

 lower the lands and coarser the herbage, the coarser 

 are the wools, and the higher the soil and finer the 

 grass, the finer are the fleeces. " The Great American 

 Desert" is the natural home of the sheep. West of the 

 Missouri there are 1,000,000,000 acres of land on which 

 sheep can probably be grazed better and to more advan- 

 tage than any other country in the world. Commencing 

 at Grand Island, on the Union Pacific Railroad, one 

 hundred and fifty miles west of Omaha, the grazing-belt, 

 eight hundred miles wide, extends west over one thou- 

 sand miles. On this enormous tract of land all the sheep 

 in the world might be placed, and still there would be 

 room for more. To attempt any particular description 

 of so large a country would be impossible, and only a 

 few of the largest ranges can be noticed. The North, 

 South, and Middle Loup Rivers are over two hundred 

 miles long, and flowing together, just north of Grand 

 Island, empty a short distance below, at the city of 

 Columbus, into the Platte River. I have been all 

 over this region, and never saw a finer one on earth. 

 Imagine a broad valley, green as the sea, a wide river, 

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