PRACTICAL PAPERS —SHEEP HUSBANDRY. 
3 J 9 
SHEEP HUSBANDRY. 
Read before the State Agricultural Convention, February, 1373. 
BY ELI STILSON, OSHKOSH. 
This subject, in all its relations to agriculture and in the details 
of its management, presents so many important questions that I 
can only point out a few important ones. This industry and its 
ally or joint industry, woolen manufactures, present an array of 
wealth and usefulness that at once should challenge attention, 
and place them among the leading industries of the nation. Their 
combined products amount to nearly two hundred million dollars 
yearly.; and so closely are all our industries allied, that when one 
suffers, all feel the effect, and all are affected by the prosperity of 
each. Wool growing, like all other branches of farming, has had 
its vicissitudes, its prosperity, and its depressions, but not in so 
great a degree as other branches of farming. 
Where is that Illinois farmer that a few years ago said, “ He 
could make more money to raise pork and manure his land with 
the carcasses of his sheep than he could in wool growing?” or 
where is that Wisconsin politician that a few years ago, in 
attempting to write editorials for an agricultural journal, said, 
“Wool growing in Wisconsin must be abandoned?” The tariff 
on wool and woolens has fully vindicated itself by its practical 
effects, and requires no defense from me. Wool growing to-day 
is on a sound and healthy basis, free from excitement which 
would inevitably tend to over production, and at the same time 
free from financial embarrassments because prices are fair. A 
few years ago, the price of wool was relatively low—more relative 
than absolute—but now the tables are turned, and while wool has 
gone up, most other products have gone down. The pork and 
corn growers have ceased to pity the wool growers, and are now 
declaring war on the railroads, which have got them at a terrible 
disadvantage, and are wresting from them their hard earnings by 
extortionate charges for transportation. 
