Ashtabula telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1874-1880, 1879-10-31
SHEEP,
CIneinnaII's SuPPIy-SOme Statistics
A Mathematical Problem.

| third was shipped, leaving one hundred
| thousand for home consumption, or two,
thirds of sheep annually for each of oul
| inhabitants, enough to furnish every man,
woman and child with dinner of mutton
every day. The time to lay in stock oi
tallow for candles, is October. During that
month last year about one ninth of the
/ whole number received during the yeaI
were shipped, and their weight was then
| the greatest. Some even held their own in
a balance with three hundred and twenty
pounds on the other end. The average
| Weld of sheep should be about three pounds
| of wool per year. Even the little Shetland
sheep, which are prOportionste IN size to
their ponies, raise three quarters of pound
| a year. There are cases mentioned of
feeces weighing twenty-one pounds, but
| these are as rare as chickens teeth, and are
for great part due rather to the presence
of dirt than wool. Allowing, however,
three pounds of perfectly clean wool to each
sheep, the annual yield Of Great Britain
would be 96.OO0 900 pounds.
In calculations, pound of wool is gen.
erally allowed to make one yard Of cloth.
Figuring in the basis enough wool is an
na1lly produced in Great Britain to make
thirty million pairs of breeches, or allow
ing each male Of Cincinnati to wear out
four pairs IN the course of twelve months,
to keep the pants-wearing part Of our pop
ulation supplied with these indispensibles
for Ole hundred and fifty years. Allowing
man to wear out twenty yards Of mate
rial each year it would take seven sheep to
raise enough wool for him, and keep them
pretty busy at that. The average worn
ont by each individual is smaller than this,
for in our population one in thirty-siX is a
baby. and more than seven times that num-
ber in thirty-six are under eight years old,
at which age safe estimate, making due
allowance for climbing fences and sliding
on cellar doors, calls for four Yards Of
cloth each year, so that all things consid-
cred, carpets, hats and clothing, four
pounds apiece is fair allowance for the
annual consumption of each citizen of this
great and glorious republic in the woOlen
line.
Our population increases at a compound
ratio of three per cent. per annum, which
would double it in twenty-three years, one
hundred and sixty-four days. The causes
which have hitherto operated to give us so
rapid an increase to our population are still
in action. Supposing in the future that
the rate of increase be diminished to two
per cent, the population would double in
thirty-cight years. At that rate, in hun
dred wears, it would take to supply the
United States over a third Of million
more sheep than there are now on the en-
tire globe. Here's q chance for specula-
tors to buy sheep and keep them until then.
There are in the United States twenty
eight and half million sheep. OF all the
States Ohio has the greatest Rnumber-
4, 92S, 900. California comes in next with
hardly more han half that number, and
New York next with half a million less
than California. Ohio, though producing
more wool than any other State is third in
the list in the number of wooden manufac-
tories. These employ over two thousand
hands, an average of one hundred and
eight to each establishment. Florida is
down for one mandatory and that en-
ploys one hand. Ohio has two thousand
two hundred and forty-three hands at the
trade, with engines and water wheels of
1912 horse power. The total number of
spindles is 80, 789. Massachusetts with
her one hundred and eighty-fve establish
ments has four hundred and seventy thou
sand spindles. Ohio has three million dol
lars capital employed, Massachusetts twen-
ty million. In Ohio the wool consumed
annually is four million pounds, in Msssa-
chussetts thirty-seven million, enough to
cloth each of its 1,457, 900 inhabitants for
twelve years. The United States do not
produce enough wool of their own but must
import it from across the water. The i'm
ports sometimes reach as high as seventeen
million pounds IN three months. This i'm
ported yarn is mostly used up in Massa-
chusetts to make cashmere shaWls of. The
folks on the other side of the earth know
how to raise fine wool, but the witches do
bother them so. Repeatedly in Ireland
they have killed thousands in single sea-
son by their potent charms. In this they
are almost as destructive as the lFishmen
themselves who, when their country was
invaded by William of Orange killed
McCauley says-over hundred thousand,
leaving their earcasses to rot and pOllute
the air. Burns in Tom O'Shsnter alludes
to the powers exercised by one Of these
s'withered beldames suld and droll, to
turn aside the laws of nature, in a descrip-
tion Of one of the diabolical sisterhOod.
Black sheep are, and always have been,
supposed to have particularly close rela-
tions to spirits Internal. 1t was always a
black sheep that the old Romans sacrificed
to any of the Gods of Avernus. 1t was in
the pouring forth of their blood that these
deities took particular delight. Acueas
did not consider it safe to undertake his
Journey to Hades before sacrificing several
of these. Many of the most powerful spells
and diabolieal Vaccinations, as well as
some of the most wonderful cures by the
witches have been effected by the use of
the gall and livers of black sheep. 1t was
by means Of sheep that the far famed
Ulysses made his escape from the care Of
the CycIops, the one-eyed giant Of Sicily.
1t was to capture the golden fleece that the
Argonautic expedition sailed,
To one who is Of mind to undertake it,
raising sheep could be made as good pay
ing business as sailing on a piratical 1Oy-
age. This is destined to be the business Of |
the Southern States in the future, A sin |
gle sheep will eat three pounds of hay |
day when furnished with no other food. |
A ton would thus keep a sheep two years, |
or an acre three sheep a year, for il there |
is any grass at all to be had sheep get it. |
In New England it is said they even pa
tiently submit to the painful operation OF |
having their noses ground down thin on a |
grindstone in order that they may reach in /
between the erevices OF the rocks TO get the |
tufts of grass which grow there. In this |
climate It costs a dollar a year to feed g |
sheep. Its wool is worth a dollar and
twenty cents. This leaves twenty cents |
and the increase Of the nook to pay the |
taxes, This If you had II flock OF three |
hundred thousand, as many of the Aus
tralian farmers have, would amount to no |
small income.
Bsrnum used to have a sheep in his show |
with seventy pound tail, Il was from |
Syria where they have plenty more like |
them, The shepherds pride themselves on |
the size of the tails they can raise aud pro, |
vide the sheen with little wagons or rather
boards on wheels to carry tail on. In the |
adjoining Caucassion the lambs are sewed |
mp in linen and rubbed down with warm |
water once a day to make the wool soft and !
curly. In Iceland the believer in the de- |
velopment theory beholds to his satisfae- |
ton four horns spirnging from the head Of |
one sheep and indications Of the appear
anee Of another. In our own Country he
might see, on any day OF on any Of our
thorough fares, two legged sheep perambu-
lating the city without thought that
MANY observers were putting them down
as the missing link. JUyEMs.
II you want to get rid Of pimples, boils,