g2 SHEEP HUSBANDRY. 



to enter upon the topic. I would recommend that all persons 

 desirous of beginning sheep husbandry, who may desire more infor- 

 mation than they have been able to procure from their agricultural 

 papers, and the excellent reports of the Secretary of the Board of 

 Agriculture of our State, should purchase a wool grower's manual. 

 The work of Mr. Morrell seems to be everything that is desirable 

 for such a purpose, and I hope many of you may order it, and 

 read it, and then lend it to your neighbor. Would it not, by 

 the way, be a very judicious expenditure of the funds of the socie- 

 ty, to procure some twenty or thirty dollars' worth of standard 

 agricultural books, to be loaned by the Secretary to members of 

 the society for certain periods. There are a few topics as to the 

 management of flocks, which seem to me cannot well be passed 

 over without mention. 



And first, as to the breed of sheep desirable to be introduced in- 

 to Washington county. Where sheep are kept in small flocks of 

 from ten to thirty as now, mainly for the production of stocking 

 yarn and homespun flannel, undoubtedly a long and not too fine 

 wooled sheep is the best. I judge from the reports I have col- 

 lected of the amount of wool sheared from the sheep now kept in 

 this county, that there are breeds and cross breeds now acclimated 

 among us, as well adapted to these purposes as any other. I know 

 that there is home manufactured stocking yarn, now made in this 

 county and in this town, in too small quantities, superior in beauty 

 as in strength and durability, to that made in our factories. The 

 native sheep if we have such, I mean Ihose that have been kept for 

 many years here, ai'e very prolific, many of the lambs raising lambs 

 at a year old, and sure of progeny at two years, and so good 

 nurses, that the number of twins, if well tended, will make the 

 lambs equal the whole flock annually. For these purposes, of the 

 celebrated foreign breeds it seems to me that the Cotswolds and 

 their grades are the best. They are a long-wooled, hardy race, 

 requiring less rich pasturage than the Leicesters and producing 

 fleeces than the South Downs. 



But if sheep keeping is to be entered upon as a leading branch 

 of farming, the sale of wool and not the sale of manufactured wool 

 or of mutton, must be the object. We are too far from a great 

 meat market to raise the South Downs or Leicesters. So that the 

 question to settle at the outset is, what kind of sheep in this cli- 

 mate, and with our pasturage and foddering will produce the most 



