184 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



of the manure is set down at one-fourth the value of the sheep. 

 By the combination of sheep husbandry with wheat culture, lands 

 in England which, in the time of Elizabeth, produced, on an aver- 

 age, six and a half bushels of wheat per acre, produce now over 30 

 bushels. For these reasons, the recent practical writers in the 

 Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England pronounce 

 that, while there is no profit in growing sheep in England simply 

 for their mutton and wool, sheep husbandry is still an indispen- 

 sable necessity as the sole means of keeping up the land. For- 

 tunately, we are able to find recent illustrations at home of the 

 point above asserted. 



Facts in America, The eminent agriculturist, Mr. George 

 Geddcs of Onondaga county, N. Y., in an article written at our 

 request, and published in the New York Weekly Tribune of Sep- 

 tember, 1876, has given the results of the sheep culture in mixed 

 husbandry attained by the late William Chamberlain, of Dutchess 

 county, N. Y. 



In 1840, Mr. Chamberlain purchased a farm in Red Hook, N. Y., 

 of three hundred and eighty acres, which had been used so long 

 to raise hay for sale that it was worn out. The hay-crop of 1841 

 was seventeen loads ; forty acres of rye gave ten bushels to the 

 acre ; twenty-five acres of corn averaged twenty bushels to the 

 acre ; the remainder of the farm was pasture, and proved equal to 

 the raising of one span of horses, two pairs of oxen, and one cow. 

 The land was so exhausted that it would not raise red clover. 

 The so-called commercial manures were tried with but little ad- 

 vantage ; and then Mr, Chamberlain resolved to test the Spanish 

 proverb, — "The hoof of the sheep is golden." By using sheep 

 as manufacturers of grain, hay, corn-stalk straw, swamp mush, 

 leaves, ^and weeds into manure, he had, in 1844, not only restored 

 this worn-out farm to its original fertility, but made it so produc- 

 tive that its crops would be satisfactory even in Ohio. 



The account of the crops in 1864 showed six hundred tons of 

 hay ; forty acres of Indian corn, estimated to yield fifty bushels 

 to the acre ; wheat, for which the land is not well adapted, but 

 the best crop with which to sow timothy and clover seed, thirty 

 acres, averaging fifteen bushels ; thirty acres of oats, eight acres 

 of roots, and the pasturage of three hundred sheep, with the 

 teams, cows, &c., necessary to carry on the farm and to supply 

 the families on it with milk and butter. 



