The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-01-27

The crop of 1914 the year the war pe- gan, was less than 500000oOO0 pounos | and at that time the whole world hao l only a little more than 6G0,000,0o0 sheep'
 Since then Australia, which had more | sheep than any other country, mas hdu
 a great drought, which has reduced her | flock more than 12000, coo head.
 | The sheep of Europe have bbeen 1 slaughtered by thousands as 1ood TOT
 the soldiers. At the time she marcnea
 into Belgium Germany had less tnan 1 5.00OOo0 sheep, and Austria not Aall , that number In botn of these coun- l tries the flocks have been so greaty 1 reduced as to create a wool famine. EV-
 cry one is skimping and saving, ana / the German government has cut down | the wool consumption by making the l people turn in all their old clothes peiore | they get new ones and allowing the" ] to buy woolen goods only with cards. 1 The same shortage is true in the sheep
 of the Balkan states, and, in fact there | is no place on earth, except South Ar | rica where the sheep are now increas- | ing in number.
 , There has been notable decline in 1 our flocks since the year l9OV. WOOL ] has been so cheap that the lands nave been turned from pastures to grain, and we now find some of our best grain producing areas on the great plains where 30 years ago there were only cattle and sheep. Intensive ag- riculture is breaking up the sheep ranges of the west. They are being divided into homesteads and fenced so 1 that the sheep man must have open trails to move his flocks from the win | ter grazing grounds to the forest re- serves where they feed in the summer. The total number of sheep now in the
 United States is about 4s,5000oo, and ( F ie ap1u fo nf 20 in every seven that supports a sheep. As to the sheep of the whole world, here is a census of continents that Is approximately correct: North America, 55 500 900; South America, 112,700,000;
 Europe, 174.Oo0.000; Asia, 100000 900; Africa. 51.O0o,o00; Australasia, 10s,- 900 900.
 Almost nine -tenths of the sheep in North Amirca are found in the United States. and almost all of those of South America graze on the basin of the Rio de la Plata. The chief sheep country of South America is Argentina. It has so 000, 900 sheep and it gives us a large part of our wool. As to Europe, all most half the sheep of that continent are in Russia; Spain and France have each 16,000,000 and England about l., 900 900 more. South Africa has 30,000,- uuU Sneep, ana US WOOL product goes
 mostly to England.
 The biggest pasture on earth is Aus tralia, which at the time the war be- gan had more than S5,000,0 900 sheep and was annually producing more than 600 006, 900 pounds of wool. The sheep of Australia are remarkable for the in | creased product of wool cut from one animal and the high prices paid at the | sales The farmers there give more | for b1ooded sheep than do those of any | other country. When I was in Sydney
 a few years ago the sheep men told
 me that it was not uncommon for a
 well bred ram to sell for $2000 and up-
 ward, and that a number of instances | had occurred in which rams have sold | for 1000 guineas, or more than $5000. In | 1896 the ram President, owned by
 James Gibson, sold for SS000, while a year later the sam man sold Royalist
 for 5000. At that time MT. Gibson got
 on the average of $9S0 for flock of | sheep he brought to the sales. and
 prior to that time he had received on | the average $1290 for each sheep at
 one auction.
 | A great many of the fine sheep of
 Australia are brought from Vermont.
 I met one Australian squatter who val ued his Vermont sheep at $250 head. This was Samuel McCaughey, who at | that time owned more sheep than any | other man in the world. He had a | round million and some of his flocks l cut on the average as much as 22
 pounds, and at one shearing he sold 1,250,000 pounds of wool. I saw one of
 his rams at stock show, which had,
 was told, at least 45 pounds of wool
 on it, and at the same time saw ewes wearing 35 pound fleeces. When it is | remembered that eight pounds is the average estimate of the fleece of the | United States as given by our wool
 experts. it will be seen what these fig
 ures mean. McCaughey'e s5oO0 ram
 had so much wool that its ears were entirely hidden, and the fleece came out three inches over it's eyes, so that it looked out at the world through
 these two little holes in its head I
 stuck my finger into the fleece and had I to press my whole fist in before I could reach the skin.
 During my stay in Australia MT. Me- Caughey gave me some ideas that may
 be of value as to the increase of our
 wool supply. He was an enthusiast in up- breeding his flocks He believes that
 the fleeces of all sheep could be greatly increased. He told me that he had |
 sheep in some of his flocks from 2
 pounds to 15. He had as many as 2O,- 900 sheep in one flock, and it is easy
 to see that an increase of only two pounds per fleece for that flock would
 add 10000 pounds to his clip If we
 could increase our average fleece half as much as MT. McCaughey did the new wool created thereby would SUD- ply the annual output of 1000. 900 sol diers and give each of them every article mentioned at the first of the letter.
 ! The government at Washington is l urging the farmers to raise more sheep
 and the high prices of wool and nut | ton caused by the war will probably induce many of them to go into this business. For 10 years before the war began, wool sold, according to it's