63 SHEEP HUSBANDRY. 



required. But an enterprise based upon this method alone would 

 be sure to fail by the degeneracy and running out of the flocks. 

 As auxiliary to an inland sheep farm, an island for the keeping of 

 rams or lambs, or a coast-side pasture, where sheep could be left 

 for the first of the winter, or driven in the spring, would be highly 

 advantageous ; and to shift them to the interior as the season 

 advanced, would give that variety of diet so congenial to their best 

 development. 



Several gentlemen in different parts of the county have, in 

 answer to written inquiries, favored me with statements of the 

 number, character, yield of wool and lambs, and annual cost of 

 their sheep. From a careful summing up of the facts set forth 

 and averaging the statements, I gather that the best keepers of 

 sheep shear in this county, about 4^ lbs. of wool annually ; that 

 they ai-e foddered 140 days upon about 400 lbs. of hay each per 

 head, and yield 15 per cent, of lambs, and that the net profit per 

 head per annum is about $1, 



