306 



dollars worth, and not that number of pounds, as reported. 

 If wool was not profitable here at present prices, how is it, 

 he would ask, that the English farmer who pays as much for 

 the rent of his land, annually, as we have to pay for the land 

 itself, can sell his wool in our market? That we have not 

 enough of sheep, even for food, he was satisfied. A short 

 time 'since he saw a man here desirous of purchasing three 

 hundred for the Cincinnati market, but he could not find 

 them. Let us encourage this kind of stock, by allowing 

 farmers to kill dogs coming on their farms without an owner 

 with them, and he thought such a law would result in the 

 desired protection from this evil. 



Mr. Milligan of remarked that in his section of the Staie 

 the farmers did not plow as much as in many other por- 

 tions, and consequently their soil was not so rapidly 

 exhausted. But still they plowed more than they ought to. 

 There were other advantages to corn and wheat growers, in 

 keeping more stock than they do, that were well worthy of 

 notice. A farmer who had 200 acres of land could raise from 

 20 to 30 acres of corn and wheat annually, and with far 

 greater profit if he kept stock, than if he cultivated a larger 

 number of acres without such stock. The manures which 

 the stock would yield him would be suflicient to keep this 

 number of acres in a fertile condition, and by putting his 

 grain upon a sward, he would not be troubled with weeds. 

 Hence the produce per acre would be much larger, and his 

 labor in attending the crop far less. Cattle raising would be 

 profitable at present prices, especially when lands needed re- 

 cruiting by pasturage. 



He had attempted to raise sheep, but quit it because of the 

 loss sustained by dogs. It often happens that, when about 

 to commit depredations of this kind, several dogs go together, 

 and thus in one night the loss is heavy. The first intimation 

 of such dogs being in the neighborhood is this destruction, 

 and then it is too late to guard against it. If the dogs could 

 be put out of the way, sheep raising would be profitable. 



