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weight as one season's growth. Indeed, I need not go outside of these 

 grounds to refer you to sheep breeders who will tell you that every 

 yearling and ewe in their flock grew during the last season from five to 

 seven pounds of the choicest merino wool. For my own part, I believe 

 that much of this lightness of fleece results from want of proper atten- 

 tion during the winter months, when the whole vital energy of the ani- 

 mal is needed to keep it alive, so that little strength can be spared for 

 the growth of wool. Anotlier point to which the attention of sheep 

 growers should be directed, is the improvement of their flocks by the 

 introduction of superior bucks. Of the necessity of this, there can be 

 no dispute. The native stock, as they are called, have, by want of care 

 in breeding properly, run out. Their progenitors seem to have been 

 of no particular race ; they were brought over by the first settlers, some 

 from England, others from Holland, some from France, but all appar- 

 ently belonged to a common stock, diSering, perhaps, a little in size or 

 in the quality of the fleece; but having been kept for a long series of 

 years without any attention being paid to their improvement by the se- 

 lection of choice animals to breed from, or by judicious crossing, they 

 are now probably just as the common sheep of Great Britain were at 

 the time the first importations took place. The defects in the native 

 sheep are, that there is apt to be a great deal of hair on the limbs, 

 the wool is coarse, uneven in its staple, often shaggy, and the weight of 

 fleece light. The carcass is not well made up, the quarters being light, 

 and the whole body raw-boned, besides being slow of growth, and even 

 when of full size the weight does not render it valuable or profitable. 

 Many of the flocks throughout this State are still unadulterated natives, 

 proving what reliable " know nothings " their proprietors are. To im- 

 prove such flocks at once, is not always in the power of their possessor, 

 but there are few who cannot in a short time accomplish an entire 

 change by the gradual infusion of better blood, by crossing with the 

 most valuable breeds. In making this improvement, however, care must 

 be taken that you are constantly stepping forward, not backward; be 

 sure you breed from full blood animals on one side, always. 



There is another point also from which the sheep husbandry of this 

 country may be viewed, and that is locality, and the facilities which far- 

 mers here have of disposing of all their produce in the gieat consuming 

 market of the east. Would it not be equally as profitable for the far- 

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