Hot Springs weekly star. (Hot Springs, S.D.) 1892-1917, 1901-07-26
THE AMERICAN SHEEP,
MARKED INCREASE IN OUR DO.
MESTiC FL0cKS.

Census for 1901 Shows a Gain Alike In
Number owned and Average
Value Per Head Over the Splendid
Showing, of Last Year.
In View Of the present low price Of
wool throughout the world. the lowest
known for many years, and the great
p~rostratton nov prevailing In the wool
and sheep industry in every country,
except the United States, 1t is interest
ing to knOw how the American sheep
farmer fares. He fares best among all
his competitors. very much the best.
Fills industry has not been ruined; far
from 1t. He is infinitely better off than
are the sheep and wool producers Of
the rest of creation. Vastly better off
he is than during the disastrous free
wool period of 1S94-'97 and the sue
ceeding two years of a home market
overstocked with foreign woods
brought here free Of duty. So great
was the glut Of foreign wool under the
Wilson tariff law that it was not untiN
1900 that our domestic growers began
TO feel the benefit of the duty on wool
restored by the Dingley tariff. Even
now there is on hand q considerable
quantity of the free wool that was
rushed in during the closing months of
the Wilson law.
A year ago the sheep census Of the
American Protective Tariff League
showed some surprising results. Con-
trasted, with the free-wool period of
1896 the census for 1900 showed a gain
OF 1l.44 per cent in the total number Of
sheep owned and a gain of 121.59 per
cent in average value per head. But
this was before the bottom dropped out
of the worlds wool markets. Since
then the great slump in wool values has
taken place.
Have American flocks decreased, and
has their value per head declined along
with the sheep Of Australia, South
America and other wool producing
countries? Decidedly not.
On the contrary, the sheep census of
1901, just completed by the American
Protective Tariff League, shows:
Number Of States reporting. ...... 40
Number OF reports received. .... 1O7
Sheep owned, March, 1901. ......... Il, 464, ISL
Sheep owned, March, 1900. ....... ], o5G,7ss
percentage OF gain for 1906. ....... 1855
1t is found that against an average
value of $3.50 per head in March, 1900,
the average value for March, 1901. was
S4.O4, an increase of IA cents per head,
or $50 per cent.
1t would appear that the American
sheep raiser has n marked advantage
over the flock masters of the rest of
the world. First, lie has in his favor a
protective tariff which fixes an irredu-
chile minimum of market value for his
feeces. Unless the foreign grower sells
his wool for nothing, he cannot COM
pete with the domestic grower in the
American market. The Dingley tariff
takes care Of that. Second, the aver
age value per head of American sheep
is kept up by the enormous demand for
mutton and lambs for food purposes.
The American wage Garner, when bus
lily employed at high wages, as he has
been for three or four years past and
now is, consumes from three to thirty
times more meat than the other wage
earners Of the world. He is fond of
good mutton and9uicy lamb, and he is
a tremendous consumer of these meats.
In fact. he is the best customer the
American butcher has. 1t is not the
rich people, but the wage earners, that
keep the butcher shops going. 1t is no
longer possible, as it was in 1896, under
Wilson tariff free wool, to buy a good
sheep for SO cents. That day has pass.
ed, and will come no more as long as
the tariff on wool protects the wool
grower while the tariff on all lines Of
production makes times good, wages
high and the consuming capacity of
100000 people three to thirty times
greater than the consuming capacity of
the rest of the people on earth.
Condensed into a form easily read and
understood, the sheep census of the
American Protective Tariff League for
1901 is as follows:
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