12 



BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Domestic Animals. 



Neat-cattle . 

 Horses . 

 Sheep . 

 Swine . 

 Poultry, value 



28,794 

 4,2S8 

 61,210 

 11,352 

 19,678 



1875. 



21.902 

 4,098 



11,318 



3,441 



$31,155 



From the incompleteness of the Federal census of that 

 date, it is impossible to make close comparisons with the 

 minute and carefully prepared tables of our State enumera- 

 tion of 1875. 



Although we seem to have lost greatly in the large staples 

 of domestic animals, grains, and roots, yet a careful examina- 

 tion would show us in a better condition now than then. 



The increase on the five items of hay, tobacco, dairy, 

 orchard, and poultry, amounts to about one million dollars. 

 The reduction in the number of sheep is the greatest loss we 

 mourn. But there is some compensation even here. Our 

 sheep are more valuable individually. While wool that we 

 grow now is worth about as much per pound as it was then, 

 we have increased the weight of the fleece about a pound 

 each ; while then they didn't count more than one lamb to 

 be raised from two ewes, we now, with the care we take in 

 selection, breeding, and feeding, reckon a lamb and a half to 

 each ewe; the lamb then, at three months old, worth a 

 dollar, now brings seven dollars. The decrease in the num- 



