Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1883-08-03

Inc fullDB prices OF WOOL are QlhhppOlnt-
ment to two important classes of producers
1st Those who have hitherto made wool
growing specially on lands now enhanced
in value by adaptbility to the purposes Of
mixed husbandry and ncarness to q market
for their products.
"a. Those who have recently been attract
ed to the business by roseato accounts of it's
pro6tabeness in proportion to the capital and
labor required for its prosecution
While under other circumstances it might
be interesting and instructive to inquire into
the causes of the present depression-an in.
quiry which would undoubtedly discover
difference of opinion as to the most potent Of
them-the more imperative demands of the
present are that flock owners shall apply
themselves to obtaining the surest and speed
lest relief from existing discouragemepts,
after which the avoidance Of similar occur
rences may receive proper attention.
Among the varied phases of sheep hus-
bandry there can undoubtedly be found some
one adapted to every mans surroundings,
provided that he brings to its support that in
tellgent oversight and attention to details,
without which success is neither deserved nor
secured. No one knows this better than the
man who has for years been identified with
what may properly be termed the higher
branch of sheep husbandry, which includes
the first class above referred to. These men,
among whom are many who have been re-
quired in other years TO ride the ebb and
how Of the wool market, with experience and
capital to back them, may quite generally be
depended upon for safe emergence from the
Inconvenience or disappointment5 occasioued
by depressed wool values. With few excep.
lions the owners of farms on which they live,
and in every instance with other sources of
income than their wool clip, and with ready
market for such animals as they wish to dis.
pose of, the flock owners of the older states
will be found in position to take advantage
of the reaction in the wool market, which ex-
perience has taught them to expect. As a
rule, their hocks are composed of animals
that can be sold to breeders for better prices
than butchers will pay, and when a reduction
is determined upon, it is effected by a change
in location instead of humiliation and thus
the overflow of one section becomes the
nucleus of an improved husbandry in another
section, in its turn to become the benefactor
of still others. While it Is true that this view
of the situation has more attraction for the
philanthropist than for the flock. owner
whose necessities or calculations demand an
ample return for the wool crop, there is some
consolation to be drawn from the fact that
the country is none the poorer by reason of
the readjustment.
The most serious consequences liable to re-
suit from disappointing prices will fall upon
those localities where flock management has
been undertaken by men destitute of that ex-
perience which enables them to properly es.
innate the drawbacks of pastoral husbandry,
the limners which have been prone to set it
forth in brighter colors than ia warranted by
the average experience. Confronted in win.
ter by harder storms than he had anticipated
compelled to go through the Landing season
on scantier pasturage than the necessities of
the flock demanded with disappointment in
weight Of tleeces and number of lambs sup
plemented by discouraging prices in the wool
market-an emergency is presented in which
the nerve of the man, as well as the resources
of his pocket, are brought to trial. Though
able to bear the resulting loss, many men are
without the fortitude to seek success in the
face of such discouragements, and, selling out
at sacrifice, leaving behind them the bright
pictures and the poetry of pastoral life, they
go to swell the ranks of those who are deter
mined to see neither pleasure nor profit in
wool production. As the result of incompe-
tence and its consequent mistakes the charac-
ter of frontier woods is injured their average
price depressed and thus made to operate to
the injury of producers generally.
If there is any one lesson taught by the
history of wool growing in thelUnted States,
it is that the best results are secured by the
men who cautiously pursue the business
through all vicsstudes of the market-plac.
ing and keeping about their flocks ali the
economies and comforts experience has shown
to be necessary to their locality or condition
neither selling when others are discouraged
nor buying when others are over. sanguine
Experience has repeatedly shown that sheep
of some kind, in certain numbers, can be
made profitable on a majority OF farms Elk
ceptions can be so generally traced to i'm.
proper selection or faulty manipulation as to
strengthen the truth of this proposition aud
to more commonly than il suspected bring
the results of flock management within limits
controlled by those who while deploring
their misfortunes, seek TO place upon others
the responsibility which equally belongs to
themselves THE Byecder's Gdzefte