SECRETAEY'S REPORT. 89 



profit account. Mutton lambs find a quick sale, and I tliink the 

 latter method the most profitable. The lambs are only kept 

 while the feed is the best and most plenty, leaving the ewes to 

 get fleshy for winter. I sold my lambs the present season, the 

 first of August, from Merino ewes and coarse bucks, at |2.25, 

 and wool at fifty-two cents, sheep averaging about three pounds 

 of wool. Lambs were dropped eatly in April. Common flocks 

 of sheep are worth about $2 per head, and good lots of 

 ewes $3." 



Another, writing from the same county, says : — 

 " Large quantities of sheep are raised. The majority of our 

 flocks consist of the Merino, Saxon, and a mixture of the English, 

 consisting of South Downs, Leicesters and Ootswolds. Some 

 Spanish Merinos have lately been introduced, which are cele- 

 brated for their great weight of fleece. This year sheep are 

 very high, but the average price for them is from $L75 to $2.50." 

 In Hampshire County, a correspondent writes thus : — 

 " The principal breed of sheep is Spanish, with a mixture of 

 Saxon, growing fine wool, worth, at clipping, this season, from 

 fifty-five to sixty-five cents, yielding fleeces of from three and 

 a half to four and a half pounds. Some entire flocks of fine 

 wool yield an average of four and a half pounds well washed 

 wool. Some flocks have been recently much improved by an 

 imported Silesian buck of uncommon fineness and evenness of 

 staple over the entire body, and the result of crossing has, with 

 the same keeping, raised the amount of wool at the first shear- 

 ing of the half bloods, one pound per head of dry wool over the 

 average of the flock from which they were bred, the old flock 

 averaging four and a half pounds, and the half-bloods five and 

 a half pounds, with increased fineness of fleece. The average 

 value of our sheep at this season of the year is about $3. 

 From Hampshire County, we have the following : — 

 " The pfrincipal breeds of sheep are the Merino, the Leicester- 

 shire, the South Down and Bakewell. When it was an object to 

 raise wool for the market, the Merino was the most profitable. 

 But as mutton is the object now, I think the South Down the 

 most profitable ; they are sheep that give a great quantity of milk ; 

 their meat is considered very fine ; they frequently have two- 

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