FARM LIFE IN NEW ENGLAND. 45 



oped and put in execution another of our possibilities, the over- 

 coming of the Chicago beef trust. Can you see a reason why this 

 trust, composed of a few men, should drive outthis great industr}-, 

 depriving our farms of what has heretofore been a handsome item 

 in their incomes? The business is dead to-day, but I have seen 

 enough of the business pluck of Eastern farmers to convince me 

 that it can be restored. 



Another possibility is in sheep, that little animal that the world is 

 so much indebted to, and described by Hugh Miller as "that soft 

 and harmless creature that clothes civilized man everywhere in the 

 colder latitudes with its fleece — that feeds him with its flesh — that 

 gives its bowels to be spun into catgut with which he refits liis 

 musical instruments — whose horns he has learned to fashion into a 

 thousand useful trinkets — and whose skin converted into parehui'-nt 

 served to convey to latter times the thinking of the first full blow 

 of the human intellect across the dreary gulf of the middle age<." 

 The idea of their value to the land the Spanish embody in ilie 

 phrase, "Sheep have golden hoofs." They are indeed true gold, 

 bringing blessings to all farms where they are maintained, their 

 nature understood, and their wants supplied. There is no better 

 sheep country in the Northern States than New England, and no 

 country that needs them more. The sheep is an animal whose his- 

 tory goes back to the beginning of civilization, and ever with the 

 same reputation for value and profit. 



This is to a certain extent a business man's convention, we are 

 all here looking for improvement or profit. Some of you may say 

 that you have not the capital with which to embark in stock raising 

 and that you consider the market overstocked already. Let me 

 mention another possibility promising a market, a profit, and surely 

 within the reach of all, poultry. The market is always good for 

 the whole race making one think that Thanksgiving lasts all the 

 year round. When once fairly started they grow themselves as 

 Topsj did without much care from the owner. The carcass requires 

 but a liitle husking to prepare it for market, and eggs no prepara- 

 tion at all, and whoever knew of a time when they could not sell 

 them, even those that by reason of age, are unfashionable, having 

 developed a superabundance of sulphuretted hydrogen, or seem to 

 have been laid by young pullets in poor health are saleable, being 

 used in the arts, there can be no loss, cost price can always be 

 obtained. The West sends many eggs to our markets, Canada sells 



