46 
WISCONSIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
themselves, in its management, to the laws of supply and de¬ 
mand, it will permanently rank among the most profitable 
branches of our husbandry. It is profitable even now; but 
except as a result of war or other national upheavals, it ought 
not to be subject to those frequent ups-and-downs which have 
characterized the past. It will not, when reason and judgment 
rule instead of fever and fashion. 
We may not be able in the United States to compete with 
the herdsmen of South America in the production of the 
coarsest wools, but with our boundless areas of rich natural 
pasturage, our admirable climate and numerous other advan¬ 
tages, we ought to be able to compete with any portion of the 
world in the production of the better classes of wool. 
We have not the figures at hand to show just wdiat propor¬ 
tion of the 49,812,392 pounds of wool imported in 1869 was 
of the finer grades, but it is safe to say that a considerable 
amount of the millions of money sent out of the country for 
such imports ought, by some means, to have been kept at 
* home; as also the larger part, if not the whole, of*the $42,- 
225,482 paid to foreign manufacturers for woolen goods. 
SWINE. 
In this department of stock-raising, we have been even more 
backward than in the preceding, as will appear from the fol¬ 
lowing statistics : 
Table showing the number of Swine of all ages in Wisconsin and Iowa in 
1850,1860,1870. 
Number of Swine of all ages. 
In Wisconsin. 
In Iowa. 
1850 . 
159,276 
323,247 
934, 820 
2,409,679 
I860. 
334,055 
512,778 
1870. 
From the fact that hog-raising and corn-growing naturally 
advance together, the above results might have been antici¬ 
pated, on the basis of what we have seen of the small increase 
