* ANNUAL REPORT—AGRICULTURE. 
87 
Texas cattle disease, from which many of the other states have 
more or less suffered. 
The conviction is yearly becoming more general among our 
farmers that there are definite principles of breeding, which it 
is necessary to understand and observe, in order to the best re¬ 
sults; and the number correspondingly increases of such as 
are willing to make large expenditures and sacrifices, in order 
to insure to their flocks and herds the best conditions of success. 
So that, not only in fine-wool sheep—in which we have, for 
some time, held rank among the foremost of the wool produc¬ 
ing states—but also in the quality of our horses and cattle, we 
are quite rapidly approaching the time, when the Wisconsin 
farmers will be able to show stock with even the foremost 
breeders in the older states. Our fairs, state and county, are 
doing much to advance this interest, by bringing the best ani¬ 
mals to the notice of many communities, by encouraging the 
owners of valuable stock bred in the neighboring states to 
bring it among us, and by stimulating many spirited breeders 
to import even from foreign countries. 
THE WOOL CLIP OP 1869 
Was scarcely less than 40 per cent, short of the clip of 
1868. Wisconsin was fast becoming a great wool-producing 
state; but, under the depressing influence of low prices, she 
has suddenly dropped to an ordinary position among the states 
not particularly distinguished in this branch of husbandry. 
This sudden revulsion is not wholly due, by any means, to the 
moderate prices of wool during the years 1868 and 1869— 
which at no time fell entirely below paying rates—but rather 
to the extraordinary difference between those prices and the 
prices of the few previous years. To have received the ex¬ 
travagant price of a dollar and more per pound, and to have 
been indulged in such enormous profits until his ideas, ex¬ 
penditures and investments had all become adjusted to it, and 
then be brought rapidly down to the old rates common before 
the war—this was more than Ihe farmer was prepared for. 
He was first surprised, then provoked, and finally so disgusted 
