SHEEP HUSBANDRY. 197 



lus will now and then preponderate. That you have a particulai* 

 breed of sheep is of far less importance, than that you bestow 

 skillful care upon what you have. The man that has those which 

 have heretofore made him good returns, should not be persuaded 

 to give them up for others, whose habits and wants are not as well 

 understood. 



This field of enterprise is broad enough for all who wish to 

 enter it, so broad there need be no envious jostlings, for every 

 man who can produce a first-class animal, in any of these families, 

 will find a buyer waiting at his door. 



I have thus, gentlemen, briefly alluded to some of the principles 

 upon which an intelligent and reliable conclusion relative to Sheep 

 Husbandry in New England may be based. That this subject is 

 to receive far more attention, as our populations grow more dense, 

 and our increasing demands for meat fail to be supplied by beef 

 alone, I have no doubt. To this enterprise we must look for means 

 wherewith permanently to cnvich our impoverished fields, and 

 hence to make fat and flourishing every branch of agriculture. 

 The enviable success which some men in this country, and many 

 men in England have achieved, in breeding a selected variety of 

 sheep, should stimulate us to attempt even greater achievements. 

 As perfect in appearance as are our beautifully moulded Merinos, 

 our faultlessly shaped Leicesters and Cotswolds, none of them have 

 been carried beyond the line where further improvements are no 

 longer possible. To keep them where they now are, and not allow 

 them to slide backward to the types out of which the present won- 

 derful developments have been wrought, will tax the keenest intel- 

 ligence and the most unwearied, energy. And herein lies the 

 dignity of our work ; the difiiculty of keeping our domestic animals 

 bred up to a high and affluent point. That man can do this, is the 

 crowning triumph of human genius. 



God makes no perfect animal — He speaks into existence no 

 mammoth Durham, no fine-turned Merino — no fleet roadsters. He 

 gives to man the coarser materials, in bones and blood and muscle, 

 and leaves it for human genius to work out these miracles of art, 

 these wonderful victories in flesh and blood, wherewith to adorn 

 the world. 



