284 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



strongly recommend such sheep as being adapted to the wants 

 of this district or country. The Middle Wools are not too large 

 for the fertility of our pastures. If they require little richer 

 feeding grounds than the Merinos, they do not need to be kept 

 in our very best fields and meadows, like the Coarse Wools. If 

 judiciously managed, they will improve our lands, greatly and 

 speedily. Wherever a sheep lies down, — if it has a reasonable 

 amount of room, — the grass springs up. They furnish the 

 cheapest means for clearing up the old pastures which under a 

 system of exclusive cattle-husbandry are becoming over-grown 

 with briars, daisies, weeds and mosses. They make short work 

 of such rubbish, and bring in its place white clover and the finer 

 English grasses. Sheep husbandry is the true method of reno- 

 vation for most of our hill-farms, now run down from the con- 

 tinual pasturing of cattle. If the Berkshire hills were situated 

 in any of the old agricultural countries of Europe, they would 

 be crowded with flocks. When an English farmer rents a farm, 

 it is generally made a condition of the lease that he keep a cer- 

 tain number of sheep for the benefit of the land. In Holland, 

 where farms are better cultivated than our gardens, there, is a 

 flock to almost every herd. Some of our own most intelligent 

 and thrifty farmers have stated that, during the last few years of 

 low prices for sheep and wool, they have found profit in keeping 

 sheep. We think that the great majority of farms on the Berk- 

 shire hillsides ought to have, at least, a small flock of sheep on 



them. 



J. M. Mackie, Chairman. 



SWINE. 



WORCESTER NORTH. 



From the Report of the Committee. 

 On arriving at the pens and wagons containing the subjects of 

 our investigations, it needed but a glance to convince one that 

 in no kind of domestic animal had a greater change taken place 

 within the last thirty or forty years than in swine. Who thought 

 of inquiring, at that time, of what breed a hog was ? A pig was a 



