153 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



SHEEP BREEDING. 



BY E. S. WEAVER. 

 [Read at Uaro Institute. 1 



Will Carletou, ill his "Festival of Reminiscence," or the "Pioneer Meet- 

 ing," makes the president of the occasion say: "To help this meetin' 

 'long, my eldest son, George Washington, will perpetrate a song." For this 

 same purpose, I am to perpetrate, not a song, but a paper. 



I had hoped to have been spared this infliction upon you, as well as upon 

 myself, especially after the inexorable committee of arrangements had assigned 

 me the subject of sheep. Presumably the committee thought that if I had 

 any practical knowledge of any one thing, which was worthy the considera- 

 tion of his assemblage, it was upon that particular subject, and I, for fear 

 you would think that I knew not much else, and was somewhat fanatical 

 regarding sheep, disliked being made instrumental in affirming your convic- 

 tions that I was a little oS. on this question. 



This, by way of explanation and extenuation of my ofEense, that the 

 responsibility of this effusion may rest where it properly belongs, — upon the 

 committee of arrangements. 



Without a fertile soil, there can be no successful or profitable farming. This 

 I believe to be an axiom, the experience of agriculturists in all ages having 

 demonstrated the truthfulness of this assertion. 



If this position is accepted and we are to be prosperous farmers, then it 

 naturally follows and becomes a necessity, if our lands are impoverished that 

 they be made rich ; if they are already fertile, that the fertility be maintained. 

 How is this to be accomplished? Mainly by one of three ways, or by their 

 combination. These ways or means are by the application of what we denomi- 

 nate barnyard manure, or by green manuring, which is the plowing under of 

 clover, buckwheat or any growing crop that for this purpose is thought to be 

 desirable, or by the use of commercial fertilizers. Of these three, undoubt- 

 edly the best one for all soils, crops, conditions, and seasons, is the first one 

 named in the list, barnyard manure. 



To the owners of lands lying adjacent to villages or cities, perhaps a suffi- 

 cient supply may be drawn at a minimum price from private and public 

 stables ; but the majority of farmers must depend for quantity and quality, 

 upon the number and kind or kinds of domestic animals kept on the farm, 

 their feed, and the mode of handling the manure. 



Our farm stock, when properly cared for, are but factories from which much 

 of the profits of the farm are derived — taking the raw material, corn, oats, 

 peas, barley, grass, hay, and the coarser fodders, transforming them into 

 beef,^ pork, mutton, milk, butter, cheese, and wool (which are readily con- 

 verted into money), leaving manure the residue in the process of manufactur- 

 ing, to be applied to the fields, helping them to give in return an abundant 

 harvest to the painstaking and thrifty husbandman. 



Which of the different kinds of our farm animals a person should choose as 

 best adapted to his needs might depend somewhat upon certain conditions of 

 the farm on which they were to range; but without stopping to discuss the 

 question as to what the conditions should be, which would best meet the wants 

 and requirements of each separate kind of farm stock, and supposing you are 



