SECRETARY'S REPORT. 179 



By pursuing this course for a few years, he will not only be able 

 to throw light upon a dark question and aid his brother farmers to 

 an important decision, but he will find that he has made a profitable 

 investment pecuniarily, and if it happens that he has bred in the 

 right direction for his locality, and the neighborhood is not m Jested 

 loith dogs, his progress to wealth will be opposed only by the extent 

 of his farm. 



In sheep keeping it should never be lost sight of, that these rang- 

 ing animals require a frequent change of pasture, more than any 

 other sort of live stock, and that they never fail to pay handsomely 

 for every such change. Blacklock says, " Nothing will conduce so 

 much to the health of sheep, and to the speedy taking on of fat, as 

 the frequent shifting of the flock. Disease will, doubtless still affect 

 the animals, but illness will be rare, and mortality diminished, if 

 by the care of their rulers, they are enabled to obtain what instinct 

 tells them is the best of medicine." Judge Buel said, "Keep your 

 sheep dry, give them pure air and plenty of food, and carry them to 

 spring grass, by all means, in good flesh. Stint them not in salt, 

 and feed turnips, potatoes and coarse grain occasionally, particu- 

 larly to such as have to give suck." 



The following extract from the Patent Office Report of 1851, p. 

 97, accredited to the "Wool Grower," was discovered after the 

 above was penned. Identical as it is with much, corroborative of 

 nearly all, that has been here advanced, and adding still more, it is 

 hoped that it may give force, if not dignity, to this paper. 



" Everywhere and anywhere the sheep will live and thrive, and, 

 with proper care, pay more for the labor and capital invested, than 

 any other animal or any other system of farming. It is one of the 

 most useful and economical modes which have been given us to con- 

 vert the vegetation of the farm to money. There is no animal in 

 which there is so little waste or so little loss. For at least seven 

 years of its life, it will give an annual fleece, to the value of the car- 

 cass, and the yearly increase will be nearly or quite equal to the 

 cost of keeping, giving as a general thing, a profit of cent per cent. 

 Of all the other animals, the cow comes nearest to the sheep, in the 

 profit it returns to the farmer, if well cared for ; it will pay for 

 itself each year, by the milk it yields, and defray also the cost of 

 keeping. We aver, without fear of contradiction in truth, that there 



