at 5.5 pounds; and the Bradford Observer, in 1882, at 5.75 pounds. The weight will differ from season to season by as much as a quarter of a pound; and much more widely according to sheep and pasture. In Wales the mountain fleece will yield from 1 to 2 pounds; and the lowland, from 5 to 7 pounds. The Irish mountain fleeces vary from 3 to 5 pounds, and the Roscommon from 10 to 12 pounds. The average for Ireland is from 6 to 62 pounds. In 1869 the average weight of Australian fleeces was given at 3.75 pounds, and at 3.65 pounds for Cape fleeces.

COMMERCE IN WOOLS.

Such estimates of production must be more or less of a general nature, and can show only the barest outline of the subject. Nor is the degree of accuracy any greater when the commerce of the world in wool is considered. There is a liability of counting the same trade two or even three times. An export of Australian wools may pass through the trade returns of the United Kingdom, France, or Holland before it reaches the place of consumption. Then, wools are exported in so many conditions-unwashed, washed, scoured, or unscoured. One pound of washed wool may represent two pounds of unwashed; the difference in scoured and unwashed wools is even greater, and varies with the nature of the sheep farm, the manner of treating and marketing wools.

The confusion of commercial nomenclature is also an almost insuperable obstacle to a general table that shall be accurate. In taking the exports from eastern countries we have the results expressed in pounds, bales, bundles, and packages, and no common denominator. North, in the "Wool Book" of 1892, prints a table giving the average weights of bales of wool, and I insert it to show how wide the limits

In the diagram prefixed to this report, prepared upon a carefully minute study by Mr. W. Burchard, of this bureau, an attempt is made to show the exports in 1891 from wool-producing countries and the special imports into wool-consuming countries-such imports representing the quantities that actually passed into consumption or manufactures. In this way the difficulty arising from a repetition of commercial figures was largely obviated, and the general accuracy may be substantiated by the reasonably close approximation of the aggregates of imports and exports, the difference being 0.78 per cent of exports. That diagram is based upon the following figures:*

WOOL, RAW, IMPORTED AND Exported INTO AND FROM PRINCIPAL COUNTRIES DURING THE YEAR 1891.

*It should be stated that no attempt is made to assimilate wools in the various conditions of marketing. The totals include all wools, whether washed, in the grease, or scoured.

WOOL, RAW, IMPORTED AND EXPORTED INTO AND FROM PRINCIPAL COUNTRIES DURING THE YEAR 1891-Continued.

To show the general tendency of the European wool supply from outside sources, I insert a statement contained in Messrs. Helmuth Schwartze & Co.'s circular for 1893:

SUPPLY, CONSUMPTION, AND STOCKS IN EUROPE.

Total Imports into the principal European ports of Extra European wools (including Turkish wools, Mohair, Alpaca, and Camels' hair), the deliveries during the past ten years, and the stocks in ports at the end of each year (in thousands of bales):

The earliest statistics of the imports of raw wools into this country are to be found in a report of the Secretary of the Treasury, in answer to a resolution of the House of Representatives, transmitted January 28, 1822. In the letter of transmittal he said:

It is my duty to state that at the time the forms were prescribed, under the actof 1820, it was not known that wool to any considerable extent was imported. That article will hereafter appear in the statements which will be annually rendered of the commerce and navigation of the United States.

As further showing the little commercial importance of wool in that time, an extract may be quoted from a letter of the Register of the Treasury Department, in whose office the crude statistics of trade were filed:

The statements are, however, necessarily imperfect, from the following circumstance communicated by the collector of New York: That it is considered impracticable to furnish the information required from that office. Wool being subject to an ad valorem duty the value is only required to ascertain the duty; the weight and price per pound is on the invoice, which is the property of the importer and not retained as a custom-house document. A similar difficulty occurs in relation to the weight of wool exported.

The following figures, therefore, represent the first attempts to colleet wool statistics and are necessarily very imperfect, being confined to such facts as could be obtained from the collectors of customs under no general plan:

Pounds Dollars Pounds Dollars Pounds Dollars Pounds Dollars Pounds Dollars

Angora goats, etc., to Smyrna

Sheep or lambs, etc.:

Pounds Dollars Pounds Dollars Pounds Dollars Pounds Dollars Pounds Dollars

The total imports of sheep's or lamb's wool, 384,333 pounds, in the first three quarters of 1821, shown in the above statement, were derived from the following countries:

The interest in these early figures lies in the predominance of imports from Brazil and Spain, a reminiscence of the great influence at one time exerted by Spanish wool in the leading wool markets of the world and of the importance at that early date of the South American possibili ties of supply. Beginning with the year 1822, we have official statements of the imports of wool, and these have been collected in a table printed in the appendix.

IMPORT PRICES OF WOOLS.

A noteworthy fact is shown by a comparative study of the import prices of raw wools as declared upon entry into the United States and the United Kingdom-that the buyers of the United States do not seem to have benefited by the fall in price to the extent that English buyers have. Let us parallel the import prices per pound in the two countries since 1884: