32 WISCONSIN AGRICULTURE. 



No. 198. — Five Spanish Merino Ewe Lambs; first premium. 



No. 25 L — Five Spanish Merino Ewe Lambs; 2d premium. 



There were other sheep on exhibition, which we would be 

 glad to notice favorably, did time permit it ; but with untiring 

 assiduity your committee have found the time allotted them too 

 short to do fall justice to, all exhibitors. 



Upon the whole we cannot but express ourselves gratified 

 with this exhibition of fine wooled sheep, in the young State of 

 Wisconsin. 



We have had many dificulties to encounter in this branch of 

 Agricultural pursuit. Some of them incident to all new coun- 

 tries, others peculiar to the west. We allude in particular to 

 the tribe of Sheep Peddlers that have flooded our State with 

 spurious sheep, pahited or blacked in such manner as to deceive 

 many competent judges. The loss of money paid for such 

 sheep is not to be taken into consideration, with the disappoint- 

 ment arising from the faUure to obtain a genuine article. It is 

 true, that they pretend the oiling and blacking is an improve- 

 ment to the wool, and a benefit to the sheep. The first is too 

 absurd to need a refutation, and the latter without physiological 

 reason. Another practice equally, if not more reprehensible, is 

 what the sheep jockies call stubbing, which is clipping the end 

 of the wool in such a manner that the sheep may have the ap- 

 pearance of having been shorn at the usual time, when in fact 

 it has on a year or more growth of wool. Sheep of this descrip- 

 tion are distributed among us in the fall, as a matter of course 

 they shear well the next spring or summer, and before the 

 cheat is detected their notes are collected, and they are ready to 

 practice their deceptions upon some other unsuspecting commu- 

 nity. We flatter ourselves these deceptions have had their day. 

 Good sheep of the several breeds are now being brought in, and 

 our enterprising breeders are beginning to supply the home de- 

 mand. We would recommend that in future no s^eep be al- 

 lowed to compete for a premium at our annual fairs that has 

 been oiled or blacked, and our present regulations will debar 

 those that have been siubhed. 



Far be it from your committee to class all venders of sheep 

 with jockies. There are men engaged in this business of in teg- 



