196 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



from what the winds would blow away or the waters carry down 

 into the river, they return to us a right royal benefaction for the 

 little they ask at our hands. As "rag mills" make an excellent 

 quality of cloth from worn out garments, and from rags picked 

 from the gutters, so sheep seemed constituted by nature to gather 

 up the very fragments of the vegetable kingdom, and work them 

 up into materials of the highest use and importance to man. 



In striking your balance, for and against this department of 

 profitable and economic industry, let not this item be omitted. 



Any farm that can support one cow, can also, with the addition 

 of a trifling expense, have one sheep added, and larger farms in 

 proportion. How meek and confiding these timid creatures be- 

 come, when made the pets of the farm-yard and the pasture ; 

 when kept in this manner they contribute largely to the variety, 

 life and beauty of rural life, and never fail to enrich the hand that 

 feeds and cares for them. 



If then, you now, or hereafter, reach the conclusion that there 

 may be some profit in sheep husbandry even in New England, you 

 will ask : What breed of sheep shall we keep ? As I hinted in 

 the outset of my remarks, we should ascertain what principles 

 nature teaches, and shape our efforts in accordance therewith, if 

 we would hope for success. So here, to answer your question 

 you must consult first, your soil ; second, your climate ; and third, 

 your market. If you have a rough, highland farm, with not over 

 abundant grasses, put the tough, hardy Merino upon it. This 

 class of sheep love high lands, high latitudes, and a pure air. It 

 is as natural for them to run up hill, as it is for water to run down. 

 I would like to see tliat hill, the top of which a flock of Merinos 

 would not find in a single day. As a general rule, they do not 

 flourish on low lands, or near the sea, unless they are put upon a 

 high promontory, and for the same reason that sugar maple trees 

 will not thrive in a salt marsh. 



But if you have a rich valley farm, with a deep alluvial soil, 

 yielding an abundance of luxuriant grasses, and especially if within 

 easy communication with a good market, you should by all means 

 select some one of the many families of coarse wooled sheep. The 

 Cotswolds, the Leiccsters, the South Downs, any one of them, 

 will enrich any good and faithful keeper. 



With our variety of climate, and the widely differing qualities of 

 our soils, no one breed of sheep can ever largely crowd out all 

 others, though particular kinds, under local and prejudicial stimu- 



