Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1863-09-17


give further account of the character of
the imported sheep, or of the early histo-
ry Of the several iiocks.
The Merino attracted little notice in the
United States until the Berlin and Milan
DEGREES were followed by our own embar-
90 and non-nteroourse laws which com
menced in 1907. From that period up to
the close of our last war with England,
in 1915, fine wool became matter of
prime Importance. During the war of
1872, that of high quality, like Mr., Liy-
ingston's, commanded from 50 to $3.50
per pound, WioaShed
If France, under the control of the
selfish, managing, ambitious aud unprlncl-
pied despot who now sits on her imperial
throne, dareS, yes DAREs, to make torcl-
BILE intervention (and take it for granted
any other one would be treated with
contempt) in favor of the Southern Con-
federacy, we soon shall see some APP
Proclamation to the prices Of l8l2-l5 on
our wool. But with the close of the war
with England in 1915, our manufactures
and consequently our wool-growing inter-
ests persisted. Sheep went from $40 to
81 head. From this period until 1924,
fine wooded sheep were sunk into the low
est deeps Of public neglect and contempt.
In the Memoirs Of the New York State
Board of Agriculture is letter written
during that period, by the President of a
County Agricultural Society think the
county was Washington, adjoining your
state--in which its sagacious and far-see-
ing author expresses considerable fear lest
the old native stock of sheep in his coun-
ty is being deprecated in value by getting
in too much Merino blood That man, if
he was now alive, would deserve to be
made an office holder with good salary
Tho tariff Of 1924 afforded decided
protection on wool. And Saxon sheep ma
MIA set III. have given too detailed an
account of it elsewhere, from the memo
randa of my friend, the late Henry ID.
Grove, and those statements have been too
widely published to make its particular
history necessary here. This mania or
epidemic, ragged with violence till between
1910 and lS45. The tariffs of 1928, '32,
oos II anu * NCic tlldCtCu anu DdaStIi
away. | have not space to recite their
provisions here. Suffice it to say when
protection was highest in 1928, the Saxon
wool-growers were feeding on hopes only.
The highest point touched by Saxon wool
that year was forty-eight cents. And
from 1924 to 1910, there was no time
when the Saxon led the Spanish Merino
woods more than ten cents pound Often
times the difference in the market price
did not exceed five cents a pound.
| find it difficult to explain this singular
fact. The manufacturers were deeply in
terested in encouraging the propagation of
wool, so destitute of yolk, ETC., or of
termed dorm stream. They felt this fact.
They put forth their whole influence to
induce the leading wool-growers TO en-
bark in the production of Saxon wool.
Charles Jarvis writes me that his father,
Consul Jarvis, to use his familiar New
England title, was induced by Col. James
Shepherd of Northampton, and other
leading manufacturers, to adopt the Sax
on sheep and cross it on his Spanish sheep,
and he says he often heard his father say
that had he thrown his pocket book into
theConnecticut river when he started for
these sheep, he would have been gamer.
When the bush was so vigorously
shaken, it is remarkable that no share of
the birds fell to the wool grower Can
any of you explain it?
| lock back with some amusement to
the zeal with which we all tended the
miserable little Saxons. When born they
were as bare as babies and almost as help
less. Some of them when they first
touched the earth, gave one faint beat
and were gone. The effort seemed to de-
stroy them.
Selling the wool was the next act in the
comedy Our excellent manufacturing
friends would sometimes offer little more
for these gossamer ffeeces than they did
for sold fashioned Merino" wool. | have
friend who can testify to that fact. He
was devout believer in Saxons, and in the
necessary community Of interests between
the wool grower and manufacturer. After
shearing his sheep one year he selected
out all the pure Saxon feeces and piled
them up in single row against the walls
of his wool room. 1t did not occur to
him to string them, to keep them in their
places, as his wife did dried apples, and
which the size of the feeces would have
rendered very easy proceeding, but he
did the next best thing to it: he confined
them by tying strings from wall to wall
in front of them so they were kept in
their places, and then, stuck against the
walls, they glittered like SO many cocoons.
They had been washed, SO they were as
free from yolk or oil as cotton lint.
Into the middle of the floor between
these shining walls, our friend piled his
grade Merino fleeces. They would have
weighed half more if as clean, and they
were not half as clean. A manufacturer
came to buy his WOOL After taking a
good look he offered sixty-fve cents for
the dirty grade wool, and sixty-eight for
the pure, clean Saxon. When our friend
demonstrated against this want Of discrim-
inatlon he was met with the usual reply,
that if he thought he could do any better
elsewhere. it would be very proper for him
to try, &c. He finally did sell, not long
afterwards, the pure Saxon for seventy