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Show and It will also do much to stabilize the business and eliminate the element oi ! chance. For in the southwest the eheep j business Is a samble on the weather, It is a wet year, the range will be good, a high percentage of lambs will survive, and an enormous profit will be made on an investment. On the ether hand, a dry year Is sure to mean loss. During the last thro years woolgrow-crs woolgrow-crs and wool dealers in all parts of the country have made great profits, due to the sudden rise In the value of wool which followed the outbreak of the war. They are. therefore. In a position to invest in land?, pumplnp plants, fences and the other things that are necessary to put the sheep-raising business on a sound basis for future growth. Chir supply Of j wool and mutton for the next deonde depends largely upon ihe amount of fore-eight fore-eight which these men possess. Another Important feature of the situation situa-tion in the west is the abundance of predatory animals. In many parte of the southwest sheepmen must regularly figure-on figure-on a loss of 10 per cent annually to the coyotes alone. This matter has now been taken in hand by the biological survey. Dr. A. K. Fisher ha? a corps of expert trappers in every stock-raising state, and the practical elimination of loss from predatory animals may be expected within with-in a decade. The sheep business In the west now 5s one of the most picturesque on the continent conti-nent Tn herds of several thousand the sheep are sent into the wilderness, followed fol-lowed by a couple of ragged herders with their mongrel dogs, and their belongings loaded upon n couple of burros. From year's end tp year's end they roam across the wildest country in America- In winter win-ter the sage-grown prairies and the mesas support them. In summer they reach the lush upland pastures of the Rockies, often remaining for months above timberline. This method of raising sheep has the sole advantage that it Is expensive; The animals die of cold and of drought; they are caught in snowdrifts and killed by wild animals. When nature is kind, there is a great Increase and consequent profit. But this method produces a minimum o." wool per acre of range. The sheep business of the future will utilize this sam range; but much of It will be fenced, the wild animals will have been exterminated, and there will be shelter and feed for the sheep. In winter win-ter they will be driven down to farms in the valleys and fed. All of this attention atten-tion will pay. because it will elimlpato loss and make possible the production of a better grade of stock, which means more wool and heavier lambB. In addition to this Increase of the western west-ern sheep herds, a greatly increased production pro-duction of sheep on eastern farms may be confidently expected. This latter development develop-ment has been stimulated in even' possible possi-ble way by the department of agriculture for several years, and since 1915 the high prices offered for wool and mutton have given it a strong impulse. This eastern sheep raising is very different dif-ferent from that of the west. For the most part, it consists of the keeping of small flocks, ranging from half a dozen to a hundred sheep, on general farms. Fifty years ago nearly every farm in the east had its flock of sheep. The Industry declined as the result of low prices and western competition. Now the time has come when it Is again profitable, wherever wher-ever conditions are at all suitable to the raising of sheep. These animals will thrive in dry woodlands, and other land useless for agriculture or for raising more valuable stock. In many sections of the east, the development de-velopment of sheep raising on the farms Is prevented solely by the presence of sheep-killing dogs. Rigorous legislation on this subject has been passed In a number of slates, however, and federal legislation has been urged. "This is a problem which will surely be solved. This country has the capacity to produce all of the wool and mutton it needs; and within the next few years large prori ts will be made in the development of the industry along the new lines which are so plainly Indicated. f f 1 DO WE FACE WOOL-LESS WOOL-LESS DAYS? By Frederic J. Haslcin. 4 i - -4 WASHINGTON. May 3. Everyone knows that woolen goods have gone up in cost and are sometimes hard to get at any price: and this, like almost every otlier trouble of the day, is commonly ascribed to the war. But the war Is not wholly or even mainlv to blame. The war lias merely been a means of cutting oft some sources of supply, creating, a greater demand, and thereby calling the attention of the American people to the fact that the industry in-dustry of raising sheep in this country has suffered a serious decline. The figures fig-ures have recently been published by the Chamber of Commer.ce of the United States. . They show that while in 1900 we had .80 sheep per capita in the United States, in 1917 we had only .46 per capita. In 1890 we produced 4.29 pounds of wool per capita and in 1917 only 2.73 pounds. Mutton forms 21.8 per cent of the meat food of Great Britain, but only 3.7S per cent here. There are several reasons for this condition con-dition of things. In the first place, the raising of small flocks of sheep on eastern east-ern farms is an industry which has greatly great-ly fallen Off in the last quarter century, largely due to the growth of sheep raising rais-ing on the semi-arid ranges of the west. Meantime, this western sheep Industry has suffered from the incursions of the so-called "dry farmers," who are taking up lands that a decade ago would have been ronsidered useless for agriculture. Thus 'great areas of range have been put under the olow. and often watering places have been" fenced and made unavailable to the sheep herds. A complete readjustment is obviously necessary. In the west, the chamber of commerce suggests, the solution Is to use the great areas of cut-over timber lands as sheep range. The sheepmen are fully aware that they face a period of radical readjustment. readjust-ment. One of the largest New Mexico woolgrowers. who was recently in Washington, Wash-ington, reported that he had just leased a large area of agricultural land in the southern part of his state, with a view to raising feed for his herds. He expressed ex-pressed the conviction that this method will have to be widely followed in the southwest in the future. It is the only way the remaining lands can be made to support the sheep industry in its present pres-ent proportions and allow of an increase |