FINE WOOL SHEEP HUSBANDRY. 149 
purpose of breeding up a flock surcharged with yolk, 
and he wants one whose weight of fleece he can buast 
of and perhaps publish, for he has some eye on be- 
coming a ram seller himself by-and-by. He has 
learned that these highly yolky rams greatly increase 
the weight of fleece when bred with a dry-wooled 
flock, and he strives therefore to make his flock as 
yolky as possible. He has not learned that beyond a 
certain point this source of increased weight prevents 
a further and still attainable increase of weight. 
Here, too, the manufacturer is responsible, for the 
same means which would correct illegitimate wool- 
growing would correct illegitimate breeding. 
Whence arises this want of discrimination in prices 
on the part of our manufacturers—this strange abne- 
gation of their own real interests? We have no more 
honorable or intelligent class of business men. | 
believe none see more clearly or deplore so deeply the 
present course of things. It is the result of a system 
almost forced on them by circumstances, and from 
which it is not easy to escape. Our farmers do not 
and will not send their wools unsold to market. The 
dépdét system was tried and failed. Americans choose 
to do their own baigaining. There is but now and 
then a locality where there is wool enough to pay 
for sending an experienced agent to it, and to each 
scattering lot of wool within it; and the same agent 
could not traverse a large region of country before the 
clip of the year would be picked over and the most 
desirable lots bought in by other purchasers. <Ac- 
cordingly, to get an even chance to buy from first hold- 
ers, an establishment which works up great quanti- 
ties of wool must have an army of agents promptly 
