SHEEP-FARMING IN THE WEST. 135 



that the interior of this country would in a few years 

 produce nearly all the wool that would be required in 

 the United States for our home supply, and in fact I 

 do not entertain any doubt but that in twenty years 

 enough wool can be raised to supply not only the home 

 demand but enough for all the export trade this country 

 can command. I have passed over the railroad from 

 Omaha to San Francisco. I stopped at Laramie, in 

 Wyoming Territory. There I saw a herd of 4000 

 cattle and some 3000 sheep grazing in Laramie Valley 

 in healthy condition and good order. Laramie Valley 

 is about one hundred miles long and thirty miles wide, 

 as I there learned, covered mainly with a short but very 

 nutritious grass well adapted to grazing cattle and sheep. 

 The climate, as I learned, was generally cool, with a 

 healthful, bracing atmosphere, with nothing to produce 

 disease either in man or stock. I mention this valley 

 because I examined it more carefully than any other, 

 but from what I saw and learned I am satisfied a large 

 part of the great central interior of this continent is of 

 the same description of land. I cannot doubt that this 

 in a few years will become the principal stock-raising 

 portion of our country. Sheep can be raised at no 

 expense except herding, and, in some places, the cost 

 of cutting enough grass along the streams for hay to 

 feed a short time in the winter, while in much of this 

 vast region, as I learn, sheep can be kept the year 

 round in good order without hay or grain, simply by 

 grazing. I cannot doubt but in a few years wool will 

 be produced so cheap and in such quantities that it 

 cannot be imported from abroad. When our home 



