158 BOAED OP AGRICULTURE, [Jan., 



me 25 or 50 per cent, of the damage done ; " I go to the town, 

 and get every cent of it from this fund that we have created 

 throughout the State for this purpose. [Applause.] Now, I 

 say that there is not a man in this room who cannot go into 

 sheep culture and make it pay, and every cent of damage 

 he sustains by dogs will be handed back to him ; there is no 

 loss. You build up your land, you make it profitable, and it 

 is the best business you can go into separately on your land or 

 in connection with other farm interests and stock raising. 

 [Applause.] 



Mr. John Webster. I am a keeper of a few sheep. 1 am 

 probably not as conversant with the culture of sheep as my 

 • friend Mr. Bill, but this season there have been dogs among my 

 sheep three different times. Last June I had five killed. One of 

 them was a full-blooded Cotswold buck, and the others were 

 ewes. Subsequently to that, dogs got among my sheep again 

 and broke the leg of one of them ; they did not do a great 

 deal of damage that time ; but lately, they got among them 

 again, killed two and maimed some four or five others. I 

 claim that if we farmers could go into the culture of sheep, it 

 is the most profitable animal we have in Connecticut. I am 

 not so friendly to dogs as Mr. Bill. You get a flock of full- 

 blooded sheep that you admire and think a good deal of, dogs 

 get among them and chase them about and perhaps kill some 

 of them ; suppose those that survive are not injured at all, 

 are they as valuable as they were before they had this excite- 

 ment? I tell you, gentlemen, no. Suppose I go to the treas-- 

 urer of the town in which I live and carry my bill for that 

 Cotswold buck that I owned — you could not buy one to-day 

 for twenty dollars. They do not feel disposed to pay twenty 

 dollars for a sheep. They will say many times, " we will go 

 to raising sheep if. we can get twenty dollars a piece for 

 them." I am perfectly disgusted with our legislation on the 

 subject of dogs. If we could go into the raising of sheep, 

 the State of Connecticut would be worth thousands of dollars 

 more than it is. I was up in Vermont last June, and looking 

 out of the car windows, I saw the hills alive with sheep ; som 



