Page:South Africa (1878 Volume 1).djvu/243

 its vines, and its ostriches. In regard to wool I find that the number of wooled sheep in the Cape Colony has considerably increased during the last ten years. I say wooled sheep, because there is a kind of sheep in the Colony, native to the land, which bear no wool and are known by their fat tails and lob ears. As they produce only mutton I take no reckoning of them here. In 1875 there were 9,986,240 wooled sheep in the Colony producing 28,316,181 pounds of wool, whereas in 1865 there were only 8,370,179 sheep giving 18,905,936 pounds of wool. This increase in ten years would seem to imply a fair progress,—especially as it applies not only to the number of sheep in the Colony, but also to the amount of wool given by each sheep; but I regret to say that during the latter part of that period of ten years there has been a very manifest falling off. I cannot give the figures as to the Cape Colony itself, as I have done with the numbers for 1865 and 1875;—but from the ports of the Cape Colony there were exported—

In 1871, 46,279,639 pounds of wool, value £2,191,233 In 1872, 48,822,562   "         "        £3,275,150 In 1873, 40,393,746   "         "        £2,710,481 In 1874, 42,620,481   "         "        £2,948,571 In 1875, 40,339,674   "         "        £2,855,899 In 1876, 34,861,339   "         "        £2,278,942

These figures not only fail to shew that ratio of increase without which a colonial trade cannot be said to be in a healthy condition; but they exhibit also a very great decrease,—the falling off in the value of wool from 1872 to 1876 being no less than £1,048,208, or nearly a third of the