192 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



while a good article will command a high price, even in our 

 communities where we find so few lovers of this meat. Not only 

 is this true, but in the principal markets of our country, Boston 

 and New York, choice mutton has for many years sold higher 

 than the best beef. In England this fact is still more noticable. 

 For years there, mutton has commanded from one cent to one and 

 three-quarter cents more than their world renowned DurhaiH 

 sirloins. Put a better article into our markets, and the sarpe fact 

 would show itself here, while a general love for this food would 

 at the the same time be produced. 



Sheep have been multiplied in England, till there are now 

 enough to give one to every acre, but the statistics of the English 

 markets show that the consumption of mutton has been for years 

 steadily on the increase. Let them be increased in the same 

 proportion in New England, and at the same time the quality of 

 tlie mutton improved in the same ratio, and it will no longer be 

 said that this variety of meat will not give the producer a re- 

 munerative price in our markets. 



With the present rapid decrease in the number of our beef 

 cattle in all our territory east of the Hudson river, no man need 

 fear that our New England markets will ever be glutted with 

 meat. Our cold climate will always compel us to be large meat- 

 eaters, and in proportion as cattle fail, we must look to the sheep 

 fold for our supply. To meet this constantly increasing demand 

 of our rapidly multiplying population, opens a field for intelligent 

 enterprise, as broad, and promises a return as munificent as the 

 most ambitious farmer can desire. He who first sees this fact and 

 prepares to meet this demand, which will surely come upon us, 

 will be the first to reap the unfailing reward. 



While upon this point we should not fail to notice another fact 

 herewith connected, namely, in addition to causes already hinted 

 at, the increased consumption of mutton will be largely augmented 

 by economic considerations. In our cities and densely populated 

 districts the laboring man will endeavor to supply his meat-wants 

 at the most economic rates, hence his experience will soon teach 

 him what science already demonstrates, that mutton loses less in 

 cooking than any other animal food. 



English chemists and experimenters teach us that one hundred 

 pounds of beef in boiling loses twenty-seven pounds, while one 

 hundred pound.s of mutton loses only twenty-one pounds. In 

 roasting, one hundred pounds of beef loses thirty-two, while the 



