ASSOCIATION OF BREEDERS OF LIVE STOCK. 687 



fellowship among men gathered to discuss questions which are of the 

 greatest value to the agriculture of the State and the nation. 



* * * * «■ # * * * 



Having said something for the long wools, I wish to say a little for 

 the breeds in general. There is not one of them, and in this statement I 

 bar none of the improved breeds, which will not repay handsomely the 

 feed and care bestowed upon it. Its carcass is always salable at a good 

 price, and the fleeces of the various breeds are an absolute necessity for 

 the manufacturer. It is not therefore a question of which breed to take 

 up, but of how to manage and care for them so as to get the greatest re- 

 turns for the capital and labor invested, 



I would be proud to see Michigan noted for the high quality of her 

 flocks of all the breeds — the long, the middle, and the fine wools. I 

 would like to see the time when breeders from other states, no matter 

 what the breed, could find animals within our borders to improve their 

 flocks. We have the soil, the climate, and a commanding position in the 

 sisterhood of states which afford our breeders every advantage. All that 

 is wanted is earnest and persevering effort, coupled with good judgment, 

 and an honest adherence to sound business principles. 



In adding to and improving your flocks you are doing a good thing for 

 yourself, your farm, your State and the nation. An advanced and pro- 

 gressive sheep husbandry is a sound basis for a prosperous people. No 

 nation, either ancient or modern, has ever become great and powerful 

 without being the possessor of immense flocks of sheep. What would Eng- 

 land be to-day without her flocks? And what a loss to France, Germany 

 or Eussia it would be if their flocks were suddenly wiped out of existence. 

 Spain was once mistress of the world, and controlled a large portion of 

 Eastern Europe and of both continents of America. At that time she 

 had a breed of sheep so renowned and valued that the most severe pen- 

 alties were enacted against any citizen who should allow a single one to 

 be taken out of the country. When she became powerless to maintain 

 herself her flocks declined with her, or were shipped abroad to other 

 countries. So the Spanish Merino was spread over the world, and forms 

 the basis of the sheep husbandry of a greater portion of the earth than 

 any other breed. 



Of all the breeds of domestic animals the sheep is the most useful to 

 man. Its presence on the farm is a benediction. Wherever it pastures 

 the land improves in fertility, and returns larger crops. Its fleece keeps 

 warm the body of the tender infant, the invalid, and the aged, and enables 

 man to withstand the fury of the elements. From its fleece come fabrics 

 as fine and soft as down, and others so thick as to defy the fiercest storms. 

 The rich can get nothing more luxurious than its manufactured fleece, 

 and the poor are indebted to it for their greatest comforts. Their sheep 

 gives up its fleece to clothe us, and dies without a murmer that we may 

 eat and be filled. No fabric is more healthy or more grateful to our bodies 

 than that spun from its fleece, and no animal furnishes more healthy or 

 more nutritious food. The rich find nothing more palatable, the poor 

 nothing cheaper or more strengthening. Every farm in the land should 

 have its flock, and it should receive the best treatment and most abund- 

 ant fare This nation will never be prosperous until it produces its own 

 wool, and American mills run all the year on fleeces from American 



