366 FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 



The first recorded importation that we find of the Spanish Merinos was' 

 made in 3 793 by William Foster, of Boston, but they were not appreciated 

 and were given to a gentleman near there to keep. Seeing no practical value- 

 in them, the record says, "he simply ate them." But in 1810, Elkanna 

 Watson exhibited three Merino sheep in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. It was an 

 innovation upon old customs, and became, at first, the subject of much ridi- 

 cule and contempt among the farmers. But fabrics made from these fine 

 wools established their value and created a demand, laying the basis for the 

 rapid increase and development of the Merino sheep ; and the gentleman 

 who "simply ate" the Merinos in 1793 afterwards paid a thousand dollars 

 for the same class of sheep. 



They now form the basis of nine-tenths of all the sheep of this country, 

 and have largely increased the weight of carcass and increased the fineness 

 of the staple from 750 fibres to the inch — at the time of their first importa- 

 tion — to 1,443 at the present time. They have repeatedly demonstrated 

 the fact that when bred for that purpose they can gradually be changed to a 

 first class mutton sheep, and a judicious cross with the larger Cotswold and 

 Leicesters gives a "medium" staple of wool that commands at the present 

 time the highest price in the market. 



CONCLUSION. 



The best stock, the best products of the soil, the best education and the best 

 brains will always command the highest price in the market. To compre- 

 hend this rule fully, it occasionally becomes necessary for us to give our- 

 selves a vigorous shake, and get out of the ruts, with our stock, our farms and 

 ourselves. 



Some one has said, that "everything that brings the farmer to the surface 

 results in good, but every thing that brings him to the top is better still. "^ 

 God and nature made the occupation noble; and who shall say that the skilled 

 toil and industry of the farmer that brings in glorious abundance from the 

 brown soil, the food and the fabrics that feed and clothe earth's millions, is 

 not justly entitled to the best that earth, art and science can produce? 



IMPEOVED LIVE STOCK FOR THE GENERAL FARMER. 



BY J. "SV. HIBBARD. 

 [Read at the Farmers' Institute at Bancroft, February 15, 1887.] 



I do not wish to be understood that the general farmer must be a 

 breeder of thoroughbred stock, but in my opinion he must improve the stock 

 he already has, for it is an undisputed fact that the scrub will always bring 

 its breeder and feeder out in debt. 



With our high priced land and low prices of produce, we must make the 

 land produce all that is possible, and so dispose of the produce that it will 

 bring the most money, and I know of no better way to accomplish this than 

 to combine the raising of improved stock with our farming. As proof of 



