and 1890 are by Mr. Joseph P. Truitt, of Philadelphia. The returns for 1891 and 1892 were prepared by Mr. S. N. D. North, while the figures of the last two years are compiled from official returns on the same bases as were employed in the estimates of the previous years. The table as it stands (the line of increase per cent excepted) was taken from the annual circular of George William Bond & Co., of Boston. In the appendix to this report will be found Mr. Lynch's figures more in detail and with different combinations, as submitted from time to time in tariff hearings before Congress. Mr. Truitt's and Mr. North's estimates will be found in full as far as can be supplied.

If we examine the diagram based upon this table we notice an unexpected difference in the development of the wool clip in different parts of the country. In 1872 what is described as "fleece, tub, and pulled wool," which answers to the division in Mr. Lynch's table, "Iowa, Missouri, Minnesota, and States east of the Mississippi, except lower southern," constituted 75 per cent of the total wool clip of the country. In 1893 it constituted only 50.8 per cent of the total clip. Yet the returns of that particular description of wool in 1893 was greater than in any previous year of record. In the twenty-two years covered by the estimates the fluctuations have been wide, reaching minimum limits in 1876 and in 1891, and maximum points in 1884 and 1893. The decline in 1876 was the effect of the commercial and financial depression which followed the crisis of 1873, The cause of the decline that followed H. Mis. 94-2

1884 was undoubtedly domestic competition from other sheep-growing regions of the country. No general conclusion, based upon the probable effect of tariff legislation, will apply with equal force to the production of wool geographically considered. The marked decline in "fleece, tub, and pulled wool" from 1884 to 1891 was nearly compensated by the increase in the clip from other regions. If, therefore, there was a generally adverse condition, applicable to the growth of wool in this country, it should have acted in as marked a manner upon all and every description of wool, and not have been confined as it were to locality or to special grades. The conclusion is inevitable that what depressed the wool clip in the fleece, tub, and pulled region was generally favorable to the wool grown in the Territories. The conclusion is emphasized by this apparent course of the clips since 1891: while fleece, tub, and pulled wool has taken a new start, Territory and Texas wool have declined.

This question of geographical distribution of sheep and product may be studied a little more in detail. From Dr. Salmon's History and Present Condition of the Sheep Industry of the United States I take a comparison which shows in parallel columns the sheep and wool industries of the States east and of those west of the Mississippi and the different course in each division:

Thus, in 1840, the States east of the Mississippi held 97.4 per cent of the total number of sheep. In 1890 they contained only 38.3 per cent. In 1840 these States grew 98 per cent of the wool clip. In 1890 they grew only 31 per cent. The variations in the interim will be shown by the following table:

PERCENTAGE OF SHEEP AND OF WOOL CLIP, AND ALSO THE AVERAGE YIELD OF WOOL PER SHEEP, EAST AND WEST OF THE MISSISSIPPI, IN THE GIVEN YEARS.

NUMBER OF SHEEP IN THE UNITED STATES, 1875-1894.

DIVISIONS.

BY GEOGRAPHICAL

11

TERRITORIES

8

UNITED STATES

This comparison is deceptive if we accept it as it stands. The large number of sheep in the East raised for mutton only reduces the average fleece per sheep. In summarizing the sheep industry east of the Mississippi, Mr. Ezra A. Carman wrote, in 1892:

Up to within a comparatively recent day the principal aim of sheep husbandry in the section considered was the growth of wool. Mutton was a secondary consideration, and, in general, was not considered at all. But the decreasing profits of woolgrowing and the increasing popularity of mutton as an article of food in the manufacturing centers and large cities effected a change in the east forty or fifty years since, and the mutton sheep received some attention; the old native breed and the fine-wooled merino and its grades were crossed by rams of improved breeds of English sheep. This substitution began in southern New England, eastern New York, eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia, and in those sections is practically complete, mutton being the object of sheepraising and wool a secondary consideration. Up to 1880, in the country north of the Ohio and west of the Alleghanies, woolgrowing was still the principal object. Within the last ten years western Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin have been repeating what was done by the East many years before, making great changes by replacing the Merino and its grades with English sheep, so that, in 1890 over one-half of the sheep between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi River were estimated to be of native or English blood. The change in the two years past in the same direction has been very marked. In all the South Atlantic States, Kentucky, and Tennessee the English mutton sheep, represented by the old native stock and some improved breeds, is vastly predominant. Taken as a whole the entire country east of the Mississippi is practically abandoning to the far West and to foreign countries the growing of fine wool, and substituting therefor the raising of sheep for food, and, incidentally, combing wool. This change in the character of the industry has caused increased attention to English breeds of sheep and English methods of sheep husbandry.*

In the appendix will be found a table showing the number of sheep in each State as estimated by the Department of Agriculture in each year since 1875. It affords a ready means of measuring the progress or decline in each State and at the same time affords a crude indication of the stress and pressure of competition, with consequent internal movement in States and geographical divisions. The testimony is cumulative on this point, that local interests and conditions are stronger than any general condition or influence, and that the wool industry is controlled by the same natural economic laws in the United States as in other countries, and is subjected, if at all, to a very limited extent, to an artificial stimulus or disadvantage.

WEIGHT OF FLEECES.

Coupled with the decrease in the number of sheep, there has been a notable increase in the average weight of a fleece. The average weights of American fleeces have just been given.

In the English sheep, Prof. Low, in 1845, estimated the average weight of a fleece to be 4-5 pounds; Mr. J. A. Clarke, in 1878, placed it

'Special Report on the History and Present Condition of the Sheep Industry of the United States," 1892, U. S. Department of Agriculture.