HOW MUCH IS ENOUGH? 77- 



article of diet we can not ufFord to do witliont it. The wool will 

 always sell for cash at some figure, and early lambs are (jiiick at 

 most any price that we please to ask for them. But I am inclined 

 to think that, leaving wool, mutton — and I had almost said, lambs — 

 out of the account, then is the sheep the animal with the "golden 

 foot." Alan}- of the ol<l fields of Maine arc worn out by a long 

 course of cropping. Tlie farmer keeps them inclosed, pays taxes 

 on theui, and they are a part and parcel of his farm. Now, what 

 can he do to improve them? He hasn't top dressing to bring them 

 too with. It costs too much to plow them up and bring them to a 

 condition of productiveness in this way. What then? Divide them 

 off into small lots, and buy a flock of sheep and turn them on, feed 

 it snug, and the clover, Timoth}', and honej' suckle will pay one 

 hundred per cent on cost. We believe what is true upon the Island 

 of Groat Britain will be true in Maine in a few 3'ears — that a 

 farmer's success will depend npon the number of sheep he keeps. 



If asked in regard to the kind of sheep we would keep, our- 

 reply would be that the South Downs combine as many good qual- 

 ities as an}' that have come under our observation. 



Many men there are who occupy the land where the farms ought 

 to l)e — we will not call them farmers — who talk about Maine being 

 out of the way. Their ideas are that one slight remove brings them 

 to tlie end of space ; that Nature or Providence never designed 

 it for a place to farm in ; that our fathers made a grand mistake in 

 settling in these valleys and upon these cold hill-sides; that the 

 State should have been left to the Indians — they might have been 

 content and happy, while we drag out a miserable existence in our 

 struggles with the hardships incident to a life in such a clime. I 

 have read of the man who said, " a little more sleep, a little more 

 slumber, a little more folding of the hands in sleep ;" and I would 

 cry : awake, oh sluggard, and remember that you are a man ! One 

 generation passeth away, another generation cometh ; but the vState 

 lives, and it is yours, my fellows, to decide somewhat what its 

 destiny shall be in the future. 



Wiiile we readil}' assent to the position that Maine is not all that 

 we might desire, in some respects, yet it is and will continue to be 

 the Dirigo State. As much wheat, as many oats and as good crops 

 of hav can be grown here as anywhere ; and when the million of 

 spindles will make music to the hundreds of waterfalls now sport- 

 ing and dancing on their way to the sea unimproved, then will the 



