392 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



to raise wool alone, we should take the Merino. They multiply 

 rapidly, they live to an extreme old age, furnish an abundance of 

 wool, and bear close stocking upon pastures and close herding in 

 the yard. The South Downs are larger; more symmetrical in form, 

 and give us the rosiest, plumpest carcass, with the least amount of 

 oflfal. The wool is compai-atively light. It is of just that quality 

 that our mothers used to choose to spin to make stockings, and 

 other articles of that kind. It will shrink very little, and may be 

 woven or spun into the most durable articles of wear for common 

 farmers' use. 



The long wool of the Cotswolds at present possesses a peculiar 

 value for certain kinds of manufactures, and is bringing a price even 

 in advance of the finer kinds of wool. The manufacture of the 

 combing wools, as they are called, into muslin delaines and 

 worsteds, is very large, but we can hardly expect that it will 

 alwaj^s continue. The fleeces are very heavy. Eight to ten 

 pounds is not an uncommon weight of fleece with that class of 

 sheep. The carcasses are also very heavy. You would hardly 

 keep seven Cotswolds, or even five, where you would keep a cow. 

 You want more room' and better pastures for the sheep. The 

 Cotswold is eminently a sheep for rich, abundant pastures, while 

 the South Down and Merino will range upon the hills, clean up 

 your grain fields, keep down the bushes and weeds that sprout 

 in your pastures, gather the manure from the banks of the streams 

 and on the lowlands and spread it just where it is needed, upon 

 the highlands. The sheep is very peculiar in its choice of the 

 places where it spends the night. It always goes upon some ele- 

 vated portion of the field ; hence the droppings are left in the most 

 favorable position to prevent their being wasted. All these little 

 things come into account, and make the sheep the renovators of our 

 old fields, and make them one of the means of improving our farms. 



There is another argument. You have a certain amount invested 

 in land. Suppose it be $10,000. With cattle and horses you get 

 a certain income from that. Now, if by dovetailing in a few sheep 

 without materially increasing your expenses, and consuming but a 

 small part of the valuable products of the farm in the way of grain 

 and hay, you can keep twenty or fifty sheep, and derive an income 

 of $300 from that flock, you see you have not got to charge any 

 interest upon your capital, or very little. Aside from Avhat it 

 costs you in labor, and in the direct furnishing of grain and hay, 

 it may be counted as clear profit ; and although, at present, a farm 



