STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 185 



Animal chemistry assigns to the flesh of the sheep the highest place, as 

 compared to the amount of nutritive matter contained in the flesh of 

 various animals. It contains twenty-nine parts in the one hundred, heef 

 twenty-six, and pork twenty-four, and is therefore better than beef as 

 twenty-nine is to twenty-six, and better than pork as twenty-nine is to 

 twenty -four — and certainly no animal food is more easy of digestion or 

 better adapted to the wants of all classes. With this preponderance in 

 favor of mutton as an article of food, the queston arises, why does it not 

 occupy a more prominent position as compared with the flesh of other 

 animals ? 



An eminent writer on sheep says on this subject: ''Notwithstanding 

 all that has been said and written of the 'roast beef of Old England, 

 mutton is more eaten there by people of every rank. On the other hand, 

 it is evidently nol a favorite meat in the United Stages, though its pro- 

 portionable consumption is evidently increasing. Whence the difference ? 

 Circumstances have led to habit, and habit in a great measure regulates 

 appetite." 



However it may be in other parts of the United States, we are confi- 

 dent that the consumption of mutton in our own State, at least in the 

 more populous cities, is steadily increasing, not only absolutely, but rela- 

 tively to the increasing consumption of other meats, and that our farmers 

 can at all times raise mutton quite as cheaply as they can raise beef; 

 indeed, that a price that would barely cover the cost of the latter would 

 yield a good profit to the former. 



But however serviceable to man as a food producing animal, the chief 

 value of the sheep is in its capacity to produce material for clothing, and 

 in this field no other animal can take its place. It is true that the goat, 

 the alpaca, the llama, and some other animals, contribute to a limited 

 extent material for the covering of man ; but none of them afford a 

 fibre so admirably adapted for clothing purposes by its softness, pliability, 

 strength, and peculiar felting property, nor in such abundance. 



The design of the Creator in giving this animal to our uses seems fur- 

 ther and more strikingly indicated by the capacity with which he has 

 endowed it to adapt itself to every climate, and to appropriate to itself 

 a wider range of grasses than any other domesticated animal — with per- 

 haps the single exception of the goat — thus enabling it to thrive on soils 

 that would be otherwise almost useless, and to accompany the human 

 race to almost every portion of the earth. 



For several 3-ears after the settlement of this State, the opinion pre- 

 vailed very generally that sheep could not be raised here to any profit 

 for their wool. It was argued that the extreme heat of the summer, and 

 the dry feed on which they must subsist for a large part of the year, 

 would tend to produce a fleece so thin and light as scarcely to pay for 

 shearing. Under this impression, those who owned or purchased sheep 

 looked only to the market for mutton for their outlet and profit. 



Scarcely anything but the native or New Mexican sheep could be found, 

 and these, worthless as they were, were still further debased by crossing 

 with some Chinese rams which were imported about the year eighteen 

 hundred and fifty-two or eighteen hundred and fifty-three. The only 

 recommendation either of these classes of sheep possessed was their pro- 

 digious fecundity, the ewes often bearing triplets, almost invariably twins, 

 and sometimes five, and even seven lambs at a birth. In size, form, con- 

 stitutional vigor, and disposition, they presented the perfection of all that 

 is undesirable, while their fleeces rarely exceeded two or two and a half 

 pounds of coarse, uneven, kempy wool, suited only to the lowest class 



