Pierre weekly free press. (Pierre, S.D.) 1889-19??, 1914-01-22
LAMB FAMINE DUE
DECLARES EDITOR

Salt Lake City. Jan. ia mutton
famine was predicted here today by
j. e. Poole. editor of the Chicago Live
Stock World, in an address before the
National Wool Growers association,
meeting in annual session. During the
next five years, he said, the scarcity
would become acute.
Mr.. Poole said that for the last five
years the west had been marketing eve
lambs in the same reckless name as
1t sent heifer calves to the butcher from
1900 to 1910. Good authorities, he said,
estimate thai so per cent of the eve
flocks of the west are over aged and
-carcasses over the ranges, thus pre-
cipitating a mutton scarcity that, in
any event. cannot long be delayed.
"One short lamb crop" said Mr..
Poole. would put both lamb and NUT
ton in he same category as lobster
and terrapin."
The Sheep Situation.
Mr.. Poole took issue with certain
magazine writer's who have minimized
the cost of raising sheep and who have,
he asserted, enormously said that the
western sheep raiser had an easy time
of it, that sheep on the ranges required
no shelter, that nature had done every
thing in the provision of food supply
for the sheep, and that the government
had done much to help nature in heap
ing benefits on the sheep w
IAN organization composed of meat
retailers. has enunciated, somewhat
persistently, the same chimera.' said
MI. Poole. During the compilation of
h present tariff bill its representa-
tives made themselves distinctly audi
BILE in Washington demanding that the
western grower be deprived of his bon
anza' by legislative enactment and the
markets of the United States thrown
open to the producers of the world.
Admit Canadian sheep n South Am
erican and Australian foreign mutton
they clamored and cheap meat will he
assured.
Sacrifice Holdings.
But results show that this measure
merely defeated the object aimed at.
Instead of increasing prospective sup
ply, it precipitated liquidation of a
wholesale character. Both east and
west of the Missouri river timid grow
ers. needlessly alarmed at threats of
invasion Of the domestic market by
Canadian sheep and foreign mutton
from the Antipodes sacrificed their
holdings.
call through the summer of 1912 a
procession of breeding stock trooped
to the stock yards, Cutting the market
and demoralizing prices, until at the
inception OF the free trade era the
native sheep industry had been almost
as effectively crippled as it was by the
Wilson bill of the sos. Meanwhile
Canada, instead of mitigating the con-
sumer's condition., has beer actually
purchasing mutton in the United States
as rs per cent of the sheep killed in
western Canadian provinces last wear
were grown south of the international
boundary.
J. E. Cosgriff, of Salt Lake, said he
ha1inJo1 tho wool rrorr;a,. 49,
only would survive under the free wool
schedule, but would compete success
fully with the worlds markets. To do
this, he said, cooperation in marketing
and the introduction of improved
methods in sheep raising would be nee
essary. He announced that at his
w e&pans. he had contracted for an
Australian wool growing expert to
spend a year in this country showing
the advanced methods practiced In
Australia.
Steps to reduce or to eliminate en-
tirely the profits of the commission
men were advocated by several
speakers. Former Gov. Frank r
Cooling. of Idaho, declared that the
producer was receiving scs.nt con
~sideration, and unless the influence of
selfish interests vas curbed they would
destroy the nation. He asserted that
Secretary Of State Bryan was re-
sponsible for free wool and added that
the industry could not prosper SO long
as the national administration was
democratic.