2G0 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



$320 for the sheep at $4 each, leaving a difference of $180, 

 the interest on which is $10.80, being added to $128, makes 

 $138.80. Then the labor of driving ten cows to and from the 

 pasture and the milking, $50 more, making the total income of 

 sheep above that of cows, $188.80. 



The fencing for each is about the same for every ten years, 

 while the value of their manure is nearly equal. For if that 

 of the sheep is not so much in quantity, it is better in quality 

 to make up the balance. The risk of life in sheep is less than 

 cows, for it takes a !a-ge pile of dead sheep to equal one dead 

 cow. The risk by dogs is now but little under the new dog 

 law. Neither is the above named profit all ; our old pastures 

 are very much exhausted and worn out from constant feeding 

 of cattle for years past. Therefore a change to sheep in part, 

 say put sheep in one-half of your pasture for three years, or 

 until the pasture is well manured and the brush killed out, then 

 put them in the other half, and putting cattle where the sheep 

 were for three years more, and so going on year after year, the 

 cattle preparing their half for the sheep, and the sheep for the 

 cattle, using a little plaster each year, and keeping up the 

 fertility of the soil of a rocky pasture for years to come. 



It may be said the above statement is too woolly, smells too 

 strong of sheep, or too highly seasoned with gold dust. But let 

 any man engage in sheep husbandry, and manage it right, he 

 will find the above figures correct, with such exceptions as are 

 always made to all rules. In England, $25 or $30 rent per acre is 

 paid annually for the use of land to keep sheep upon, and money 

 made at that, even in sending their wool to the United States, 

 to clothe our farmers who have thousands of acres of waste 

 land where sheep could be kept to a profit and the soil very 

 much improved. On the Waterloo battle-field are now kept 

 thousands of sheep taken care of by dogs, each dog having the 

 charge of about five hundred sheep. The same kind of dogs 

 could be trained to have the whole care of thousands and tens 

 of thousands of sheep in this country, on the thousands of acres 

 of land now without any fence whatever, and thereby save at 

 home some part of the specie now paid for foreign wool and 

 woollen goods. The value of foreign goods imported the 

 present year, ending June 1st, 1860, is estimated, by high 

 authority, to amount to three hundred and ninety millions of 



