172 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



reasons of present expediency against changing his practice. Why 

 is it so peculiarly the case with the American farmer, not only in 

 this, but in everything pertaining to his legitimate business, that 

 when he reasons so well, he acts so lamely ? Why should not a 

 reasonable, money-promising idea prove the same powerful incen- 

 tive to action in his own proper pursuit, that it does in another? 



Here will be enumerated incontrovertible facts about sheep keep- 

 ing; every farmer knows them, but comparatively very few test 

 them fairly by practice. Of those who have undertaken the breed- 

 ing of sheep, a still smaller proportion have had the resolution to 

 hold over a year's depression in the price of wool, notwithstanding 

 the figures of an accurate account might discover a profit from them 

 in the seasons of lowest prices. Having become somewhat accus- 

 tomed to more than fifty per cent, return, the breeders are unwilling 

 to take up with so little as ten per centum. It may be safely 

 asserted that where an account with the sheep has been fairly kept, 

 there can be shown but two contingencies which have ever brought 

 the per centage of profit so low, in the hardest years, as ten per 

 cent, of the flock's value ; and those are dogs and disease. 



There is not a farm or a farmer in the State, away from the city 

 suburb, that would not gain from having more or less of these land 

 improving, food and raiment producing animals ; not a pasture 

 which would not be clearer of coarse herbage and bushes, and all 

 the better by their close feeding, and which would not gain from 

 their evenly spread, plant nourishing excrements. 



No farm stock, no farm, is complete without them. This is as- 

 serted for application to every farm in Maine. But the peculiar 

 position, circumstances and condition of each one must, of course, 

 govern as to the proper number which may be kept upon it. It has 

 been said by one who should know, that "for every cow, any pas- 

 ture can carry a sheep with absolute gain." 



This truly may be borne in mind, that it is a result of the most 

 general experience, that sheep can every where be kept to a profita- 

 ble extent, the limit of which can only be ascertained by a fair trial 

 with gradually increasing numbers. On the fiirm which proves, 

 from its peculiarly favorable character, well adapted to sheep, the 

 same experience teaches that no branch of husbandry is so richly 

 remunerative, none in which there is so little risk, none where the 



