Rensselaer Republican, Volume 20, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 January 1888 — Wool Here and There. [ARTICLE]

Wool Here and There.

Philadelphia Ledger. Naturally, with its great diversity o soil and climate, there are vast areas 0 this country which arc admirabl; adapted to sheep raising, and w hethei or not this industry shall become ar important-part of the agricultural pur suit depends upon whether it oan b( made and kept our farmers. That question inevitably involves the other one' of the cotnpefi tion of foreign countries. —~

Sheep are raised in almost all conn tries, but in few others to the same extent as in those distant colonies of Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand, where, last year, the number of thfke/animals owned was 84,622,172. In the latter colony sheep raising was not begun, until 1848, but in 1886, so ’greatly had the industry grown, the contained 16,677,455 animals iyielding fleece. a ID the game year, m the two colonies there were clipped-upwards of 400,000,000 pounds of wool, which was valued at $85,00 ,000. Of the 1,819,182 bales o this “raw material” imported by Great Britain in 1886.1,139,842 bales, or nearly three-fourths of the whole,were taken from Australia and New Zealand. The Induslry mfhOFe countries may be said to be only at the beginning, as yet. Their population, spread over an area of 3,(91,087 square miles, is less than the present population of Penn-f sylvania, that has an area of only a little more than 45 000 square miles. Austral! < and New Zealand are threatening competitors with our own farmers in our markets as sellers of wool, and that fact is not of a kind to encourage the placing of wool on the free list at his ttime.