Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1901-04-20
DECREASE IN WOOL GROWING.
West Virginia - Good sheep Growing
state. bnt Little Wool 4 Raised.

The matter of sheep raising in this
state. is attracting considera atten-
tion. Recently there was long ar
ticle in the National Stockman. also
in the Sheep Breeder, and wool
grower, in regard to the adaptibility
of West Virginia to the raising Of
sheep and wool. These articles be-
ing widely circulated among
the farmers may have tendency TO
stimulate the raising of sheep IN this
state
At the present time however, the
business is in a deplorahle condi-
tion. said Col Morris Horkheimer
in conversation with re-
porter recently. The wool business,
said he, never was in such bad con-
dition, and never in the history of
this section of the country. were
there so few sheep raised. There are
several reasons for this. The para
mount reason probably is the fact
that in this section of the state men
had to work hard for bare living I'M
til few years ago. Farmers toiled
early and late, and yet in spite OF
this it was not infrequent that they
were unable to meet their expenses
and lost the farm ON which they
toiled so hard You could hardly go
into locality but what the mortgage
recorded in the office of the county
clerk represented large percentage
of the value of the farming lands of
the county. While things were looking
50 black for the farmer, the prospec-
tor with his spring of tools appears on
the scene and as the flow of oil re-
warded his efforts, the country be-
came oil wild. The excitement
spread from edge to edge, and corner
to corner of the state. with the re-
suit that but few countries have ever
developed as this state has in the
past ten years "This was not tenn
porary boom, but was the opening
wedge to show the great wealth of
the state, and the result of the drill
has been SO beneficial that the man
would be very foolish who would to-
day attempt to say that there was
not oil, at almost any given point
in the state. The result is that oil
companies have and do, regard the
state one vast oil field, and devel-
opment has increased from year to
year, and there is hardly month
but some new strike notifies the
people that the pools have not all
yet been found or their limits defined
Then the coal development followed
quickly on that of the OIL so that
in some sections there are vast tracts
of land that could have been pur-
chased a few years ago for 80 cents
to 81 per acre which are now valued
very high the coal alone selling for
from $50 to $40 an acre and some
even higher. This has given the
farmers great wealth in comparison
to what they possessed a few years
ago. 1t has been acquired so easily
rapidly and in such quantities that
they have not taken the trouble to
bother with sheep A man who has
half dozen or more producing oil
wells, or coal mine ON his farm
takes but little interest in the sur
face. He simply remembers the man
ner in which he was compelled 10
struggle to keep the farm from being
sold for taxes. The corporations
which purchase large tracts of land,
care nothing for the surface. 1t is
the coal witch they are after and the
consequence is this has caused sheep
raising to be neglected. Another rea-
son is that the wool business of the
world has never been in such con-
dition as at the present. We are III
hopes that the bottom has been reach
ed but it takes time to tell if even
that is true The demand for wool is
very low, and the price accordingly
low This has been caused by num-
Der of firms owning great quantities
of wool being forced to the wall, and
their holdings placed on the market.
One firm of which / know were hold
ing $4,000, 900 pounds when they went
under. The bankers holding their
paper, had this at once placed on the
market and the consequence has been
that SO many of these big firms have
been forced to the wall and the hold
ings of each III turn been thrown on
the market that the prices have been
forced down, down, down, until
sometimes it makes one wonder if 1t
would never stop. This has been
hard on the sheep grower and had a
depressing effect in all sections of the
country. Never in my memory was
the quantity of wool in this section
so small. The prices which we are