The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, June 28, 1917, Page 8

Wool Famine Close at Hand Figures for Several Years Show a Steady Decrease in Supplies BY RALPH HARMON SHEEP famine has been creeping' up on the United States for the past 20 years and its full force promises soon to be felt. Whether one examines the statistics on the total value of sheep in the United States, on the number of head kept, on the in- creased price per head, or the decreas- ing supply in nearly every state, the same truth emerges definite and clear: there is an approaching sheep famine. Yet the sheep shortage has not seemed to attract the attention of economists as has the growing cattle shortage, or the surely decreasing re- gources of the swine industry. Most of the writing and the talking has been on beef and pork. Now it promises to turn—not to mutton, but to wool. NO SUBSTITUTE FOR WOOL AT HAND ‘When cattle are scarce, hogs offer a source of meat supply that can be quickly stretched to meet part of the deficit. Poultry can be greatly in- creased within a season, and fish is a gubstitute for meat often readily avail- able. But there is no similar substitute for wool. The world wears wool. It has been wearing wool in wholesale quantities for three years, or been shivering for want of it. Cotton can not take its place in the same way that other meat products can take the place of beef. In part it is the effort to meet the decreasing beef supplies, that has led to the present acute demand for wool. The American and the Australian sheep growers, have for the past half century been trying to combine the mutton supply with wool supply, and in that effort have drifted heavily away from the purely wool-producing sheep in breeding up to a good mutton varie- ty. Great numbers of sheep that would Wool makers the like of which are going by trainloads to the slaughter houses. Ten Big States Show Decrease Here are the 10 leading sheep states of the United States showing the dt_a- crease in supplies that indicates the approaching sheep famine. But in every instance the smaller supply brought a much larger return to the growers. Number cf Sheep 1916 Farm Value 1915 1916 1915 ‘Wyoming.........4,338,000 4,427,000 $24,293,000 $20,807,000 Montana..........3,941,000 4,379,000 New Mexico......3,440,000 3,340,000 Idaho............3,102,000 3,041,000 Ohio.............3,067,000 3,263,000 Qregon...........2,563,000 2,563,000 California.........2,450,000 2,500,000 Texas............2,156,000 2,114,000 Utah.............2,089,000 2,068,000 Arizona...........1,849,000 1,761,000 have added to the wool supply have gone to make mutton for today, and the power to produce wool has been made that much shorter. In 1896 the United States u:ad rough- ly speaking 38,000,000 head of sheep, and their farm value, according to de- partment of agriculture figures, was $65,000,000;, the average price per head being $1.70. Twenty years later, 1916, the United States had only 49,000,000 head approximately, but their farm value had climbed to $254,000,000, and the average price per head was $5.17. VALUE OF SHEEP STEADILY INCREASING Ever since 1910, the government figures show the number of sheep kept in the United States has been steadily shrinking. Up to that date the previ- ous 10 years saw several ups and downs as to the total number of sheep, but one thing remained constant—the value per head increased steadily, with the Learn Tractor Driving A scene at the N. D. Agricultural college where farm boys are learning to operate tractors of all kinds. The school of Traction Engineering opened its twelfth summer session June 12th, 1917, at the North Dakota Agricultural college, under Prof. R. M. Dolve, professor of traction engineer- ing. Mr. Dolve stated that those in charge of this school feel it has a special mission to perform this year in the fitting and training of young men to efficiently operate farm trac- tors, trucks and automobiles and thus help in the great preparedness move- ment now evident in all activities. The shortage of labor and the even more marked shortage of horses and horse _ feed makes the farmers of the West and Northwest dependent, as never be- fore, upon the farm tractor. This course lasts for four weeks and during that time the student is taught the principles of operation of the steam and gasoline engine in combina- tion with practice on a large number of engines in the laboratory and in the field. A student will have the op- _ portunity of familiarizing himself with as many types of engines in this short time as the average engineer will operate in a lifetime. The course is made as practical as possible, embody- ing only such things as can easily be grasped and those things which are of special benefit to the engineer in the field. 20,099,000 14,792,000 17,371,000 16,562,000 13,328,000 12,250,000 7,977,000 11,281,000 8,690,000 19,268,000 11,690,000 14,293,000 15,336,000 11,534,000 11,250,000 6,765,000 9,306,000 7,044,000 exception of the one year 1910. For the past 20 years, with only two or three exceptions in which the variation in price was but a few cents, the price per head of sheep has been going up year by year. This has brought up the total value of the sheep, but their numbers were not increasing rapidly. At times there have been serious setbacks in the amount of sheep kept and for the past six years their number has decreased steadily. This is one aspect of the sheep shortage that is creeping on apace, If viewed in the light of the biggest sheep producing states the same truth is brought home even more forcibly. ‘When it is considered that the big range states where sheep have been crowding cattle off the wild land for a generation, are now falling down in mutton and wool production, the merest novice can see what the result will be within the next few years. BUT THEIR NUMBER IS DIMINISHING It would not be surprising to see sheep production gradually diminish- ing in the older farming states, for this country has not yet settled down to the old world way of intensified meat and wool production. ~In Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jer- sey, West Virginia, the Carolinas, In- diana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, South Dakota, and many other states, fewer and fewer sheep are being raised, according to govern- ment figures. Against this big decrease may be set such shining examples as Pennsylvania which has increased its sheep supply slightly, and a few states like New York, Maryland, Delaware, ‘West Virginia, which have barely held their own. But even in these states that have decreased their supplies, the value has increased, so that the smaller numbers of sheep produced brought a larger re- turn than the formerly greater number. However, it is not in these states that the story of dwindling wool sup- ply is to be told. The fluctuations in half a dozen of them are less than the fluctuations in some single instances among the great range states. When ‘Wyoming, the premier sheep state of the country falls off over 1,000,000 head in one year, and when the 10 leading sheep states all show a decided falling off, except three which hold their own or increase only by a few heali, the fact that there is a sheep famine com- ing on is not to.be doubted. The story is eloquently told in the: total figures for the United States for PAGE EIGHT 1915 and 1916. While the total shortage was less than 1,000,000 head for the whole country, the increased price per head was 67 cents, and the total in- crease in value for the smaller produc- tion of the latter year was more than $29,000,000 in excess of the value for 1915. MUTTON DEMAND COMPETES WITH WOOL Yet this increase of 67 cents per head, a difference between $4.50 in 1915, and $5.17 for 1916, was not enough to stop the flow of lambs to the slaughter houses. Trainloads of sheep are still going to the nine big markets where the packing houses make mut- ton out of what might otherwise make wool. Lambs in Chicago last week brought above $16 per 100 pounds live weight, and will soon be eaten up. Shorn lambs at South St. Paul brought within a few cents as much. Many of them are ewe lambs, and apparently there is no consciousness of the im- pending date when wool can no longer be had in sufficient quantities for even the most necessary uses. Many reasons have been hinted at as to why American sheep should not in- crease with the world needs. But whatever the cause, it is apparent that the supply is decreasing and that larga ranges for producing sheep in great numbers are being limited. In Aus- tralia the old sheep country is hevom- ing settled as is the eastern Uniled States, and sheep are being crowded back, while the arid or semi arid por- tions of the country still undeveloped, where several acres of range are re- quired to support one sheep, do not offer promising prospects for increas- ing- the total number. Large range is also disappearing in this country. As wool growing can not expand over larger areas (but in order to in- crease, must penetrate the smaller farms and spread out through closer culture and intensified farming) it is evident that the wool producer will be placed in much the same position as the potato grower and the wheat grow- er: where he will have to sell in small quantities to middlemen who in turn will combine their small purchases and deal with the larger markets. FOREIGN WOOL GROWERS GET BEST PRICES The big market at Boston shows that imported wool brings the foreign Erow= er approximately 10 cents a pound more than domestic wool brings the American grower. The foreigners, es- pecially in Australasia where wool production is on a careful basis, co- operate by establishing co-operative shearing sheds, sorting houses, and skilled crews to do the work, and they put their wool on the market divided, up into several classes even down to separating the different parts of the individual fleeces into separate lots. The small, scattered sheep growers -of - the United States ought to be similarly banded together to get full value of their product from their markets. Even while the farm value of their sheep has enormously increased in the aggregate, and the value per head has greatly in- creased, the quotations for wool at the great Boston market and at the other large American markets, show no such proportional increase.” It seems certain that the increased value of the sheep that keeps abreast of the steadily di- minishing supply rests more on their mutton value than their wool value. It is estimated that four billion dol- lars was made in the United States last year in war profits,