18. WOOL INDUSTRY IN LATIN 'AMERICA. The wool industry is subject to climatic influences, it being found that, while sheep thrive in the tropic and semi-tropic zones, nature, by its law of compensation, relieves them of the necessity of clothing themselves to withstand the cold and their wool loses those qualities that the requirements of commerce have standardized. Applying this to Latin America, we find that the most successful ex ploitation of the wool industry is in the ex treme southern countries of South America, or on the high table lands free from tropic in fluence.
Next to Australia, and on a par with the United States, Argentina occupies a pre-eminent position in the wool industry. Unlike the cattle and meat industry, wool grow ing has been of long standing. In 1885 the ex ports of this commodity amounted to $35,950, 111; 1890, $35,521,681; 1900, $31,029,522; 1905, $27,991,561; 1910, $58,847,699. The best year during this period was 1899, during which the total amounted to $71,283,619. Throughout the entire statistics of the country, a fact generally true elsewhere, a close relation is noted be tween the production of wool and the price of mutton. When the latter is in demand at a good price, entire flocks of sheep are slaugh tered, with a resulting diminution of the wool clip for the following few years.
On 1 Jan. 1915, the estimated number of sheep in the republic was 80,000,000, and the es timated clip amounted to upward of 300,000,000 pounds per annum (Commerce Reports, 1 Dec. 1916). Sheep are pastured throughout the re public, particularly in the central and southern part. Requiring cheap lands, they have been pushed further south each year, with the re sult that parts of Patagonia and of Tierra del Fuego, considered a generation ago as unin habitable for civilized man, have been found to be peculiarly adapted to the industry. The rapid development of this territory to its new capabilities, in connection with a similar devel opment in the corresponding latitude of Chile, has made a distinct sheep-ratsing section of the southernmost part of the continent, tributary to a great extent to Punta Arenas, Chile, which until recently was a free port.
Vice-Consul J. W. White, at Buenos Aires, on 17 Oct. 1916 made an extended report on the wool industry to Washington, calling attention to the conditions permitting Argentina to de mand unheard-of prices for her wool. The ac tion of the British government in placing an embargo on the sale of the previous year's clip of the United Kingdom had operated to the di rect advantage of the republic, enabling her to supply the wants of neutral countries in addi tion to filing orders from the Entente Allies for such varieties as the British colonies do not produce.
Seventy-five per cent of the wool comes from the white-faced, long-wool sheep of the Lin coln and Leicester breeds, the quantity and the quality being such that in the markets of the world it is known as Argentine crossbreed. Its grades, when sorted into coarse and medium crossbred, correspond to the domestic commons and domestic one-fourth bloods in the United States. The fine Argentine crossbred is the equivalent of the United States three-eighths blood. Of the yearly total, merino fleeces con stitute 20 per cent, the equivalent of the do mestic fine in the United States, and the rer rnaining 5 per cent is from the black-faced and domestic sheep. The average clip per animal is 5.3 pounds.
Prior to the European War, the principal buyers of Argentine wool were France and Germany. Exports to France in 1911 amounted to 51,501 tons; 1912, 51,138 tons ; 1913, 31,342 tons; and 1914, 23,794 tons, a total for the fourrs of 157,775 tons. During the same bought in 1911, 31,693 tons; 1912, 47,839 tons; 1913, 41,362 tons; and 1914, 30,386 tons, total, 151,280 tons. During the same years the purchases of the United Kingdom amounted to 93,225 tons; Belgium, 55,731 tons; United States, 42,521 tons; Italy, 14,849 tans; and other countries, 18,989 tons. From these figures the total exports of wool for these four years totaled 534,370 tons, being divided as follows: 1911, 132,056 tons; 1912, 164,964 tons; 1913, 120,080 tons; and 1914, 117,270 tons. Re cent economic changes have made the United States the principal purchaser of Argentine wool. Of the total export, 298,939 bales (925.9 pounds each) for the fiscal year ending 30 Sept. 1916, 152,330 bales went to the United States, as compared with the 102,429 bales purchased of the export of 303,402 bales in 1915, and 34,000 bales out of 304,268 bales in 1914. The strong demand from the United States contributed largely to the increase of prices, the average sales in 1912 being, per pound, $0.165; 1913, $0.175; 1914, $0.175; and 1915, $0201. During the August-September market season of 1916, the foreign demand plus speculation forced the price from $0.327 to $0.404 per pound, quotation that covered all classes, including lambs' wool. shorts, belly wool and sweepings, the spirit of speculation being so strongly instilled into the market that to-day no settled price is recog nized.