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Show History of Sheep Raising and Development Of Soft Drink Industry Traced at Rotary Meet Two members of the club were speakers at the meeting of the Cedar City Rotary club Tuesday, Adam Seegmiller speaking on the subject of the sheep industry, and A. J. Fiala discussing the beverage industry. Glen Froyd, acting chairman of the classification classifica-tion committee, was in charge. Mr. Seegmiller traced the history his-tory of the first known sheep from their wild state in Asia, 10,000 years ago. Although the sheep were first domesticated in Europe they were of many colors and produced very little wool, averaging av-eraging only about li pounds per head. It was during the time of the Roman empire, the speaker said, that improvements in both wool and carcass were first made. However the biggest contribution to the industry was made in Spain with the introduction of the Merino breed. At one time Spain boasted seven million head of sheep and about 30,000 looms for weaving wool. After the Napoleonic Na-poleonic wars the numbers were drastically reduced. Many Europeans Europ-eans coming to America in the early days, he said, brought a few sheep with them in order to provide wool for their clothing. He pointed out that the LDS church started the sheep industry indus-try in Utah with 5500 head, but that they were poor native stock, and in order to improve the stock 660 rams were imported. From this beginning the industry grew in the state until it reached 3,600,000 head in 1900, the highest high-est number ever reached in one year. Today through better breeding breed-ing and care fewer sheep produce pro-duce considerably more wool and meat than was produced in 1900. Mr. Fiala spoke on the soft drink industry as a whole and the Coca-Cola business in particular. partic-ular. Dr. John S. Pemberton started the Coca-Cola beverage as a hobby in 1880. A mixture of flavors from the cocoa leaves and cocoa nuts with other ingredients in-gredients started the name Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola. The first year only 25 gallons gal-lons of syrup was sold. Mr. Pemberton Pem-berton sold a one-third interest to Asa Candler, and after Pern-berton's Pern-berton's death, Candler bought the remaining two-thirds for $1700, incorporated the company and in 1929 Candler sold his interests in-terests for $25,000,000. Today the company nets more than $25,-000,000 $25,-000,000 each year, the speaker said. He pointed out that there are 1200 Coca-Cola plants throughout the United States and all but 42 are privately owned, but the product is under the control of the company. Each plant is checked at least three time a year by laboratory technicians. ,He pointed out that there is no secret about the ingredients in Coca-Cola but only with regards to the mixture. Speaking of the Coca-Cola bot-tie, bot-tie, he said that the present design de-sign came into being in 1916 and was shaped after the cola nut. The bottle must be durable since each averages 40 trips to and from the plant. |