SHEEP HUSBANDRY. 195 



One of the most urgent questions which we are called upon to 

 answer to-day is, " How can we best renovate our impoverished 

 lands ?" The answer that comes to us from England, which long 

 ago passed through the agricultural pupilage that we are now 

 experiencing — the answer that comes to us from the older countries 

 of Europe — not less than the unmistakable answer that science 

 writes out for us to read, is — a well conducted Sheep Husbandry. 

 How strong soever the others may have been, here lies the strongest 

 inducement for an increased attention to sheep culture. In conse- 

 quence of the value of the manure which they return to the soil, 

 the English farmer is enabled to pay a rental, equivalent to the 

 value of many of our farms, and they tell us that but for this source 

 of profit they could not live. The Italians have a proverb, that 

 "A sheep is the best dung cart" — and modern science tells us on 

 what the truth of that proverb is founded. It is because thi»ty-six 

 pounds of sheep manure are equal, as a fertilizer, to one hundred 

 pounds of ordinary farm-yard manure. Richer in nitrogenous 

 substances than the manure of the cow or horse, it is scattered 

 upon the field, the sides and tops of the hills, in the most desirable 

 form to be easily trodden into the earth and mixed with the soil. 



We send our ships to the islands of the most distant oceans, 

 and manure hunters to far away Continents, while our chemists 

 and geologists harrow the face of the country, searching care- 

 fully along our bays and water courses, and even plowing up the 

 hard rocks, to secure the means wherewith our sterile fields may 

 be enriched, while we overlook the best of all agencies with 

 which nature enables us to accomplish that object. 



As we are yearly paying out millions of dollars for foreign 

 fertilizers, let us stop long enough to inquire if here may not be 

 a shorter and surer way to that position for which we are all 

 laboring. 



Such then are the facts relative to the profits which sheep will 

 return to us for a liberal and generous culture, and it should 

 be further noticed that they will manufacture this delicious 

 and healthful mutton, and the valuable fleeces which they lay at 

 our feet — enriching at the same time every rod of soil on which 

 they tread — all from forage which other animals refuse to eat. 

 Your pastures, which are stocked to their full capacity with cattle 

 or horses, will still give acceptable sustenance to a few sheep. 



From briars and thorns, shrubs and bushes, with such grasses 

 as the dainty cow passes by, they glean an abundant living, and 



