SECRETARY'S REPORT. 29 



animals, including many choice specimens. In other parts of Aroos- 

 took, I found no more attention paid to the selection of choice stock 

 than prevails in some other counties in the State, and much less 

 attention paid to stock-growing as a leading branch of agriculture, 

 than it seemed to me there should be. 



Sheep husbandry receives little attention in comparison with what 

 might be profitably bestowed upon it. The sheep which I saw there 

 would average decidedly better for mutton than those of the State 

 at large, the flocks having been improved by admixtures from those 

 of My. Perley, a Avell known extensive stockgrower at Woodstock, 

 N. B., near Houlton — and who rears principally, if not wholly, the 

 pure Leicester breed. 



The most objectionable feature noticed in connection with the 

 growth of domestic animals, was in regard to swine — these being 

 both too few in number and too bad in quality. Some good hogs 

 there are, others tolerable, but more prevalent were those too nearly 

 resembling the landpikes. These were noticed in even greater 

 purity in some of the more sparsely settled parts of New Brunswick, 

 from whence they may probably have been derived — big-eared, long- 

 legged, long-snouted, slab-sided, thick-skinned, large-boned, raven- 

 ous brutes, which look as if they might have originated in a cross 

 between a jackass and an alligator, and from w'hich it would be the 

 height of imprudence for one to contract to furnish mess pork for 

 less than two or three York shillings per pound; certainly, unless 

 he had a term of years to do it in. That such neglect of swine 

 culture should exist, is the more to be regretted, as considerable 

 quantities of pork are annually imported into the county at large 

 addition to first cost from the price paid for transportation. From 

 the best information I could obtain, between eighteen and twenty-five 

 hundred barrels are required every year, and sometimes more than 

 this, as supplies for the lumbering operations;* the quantity varying 

 from year to year with the demand for timber. No one acquainted 



* There was considerable hesitation among those best acquainted with this subject 

 to make an estimate, but whenever attempted, either by judging what proportion 

 ■ the known quantity used by certain large operators in timber bore to the whole 

 amount, or by the estimated amount of timber cut, and the known quantity required 

 for each thousand tons, the result arrived at in every instance, was the same, viz ; 

 two thousand four hundred to three thousand barrels, in average years. 



