56 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Ja"-. 



mals, yet the presence of disease is something which you must 

 be eternally on the watch for. There are some diseases which 

 it seems to be almost impossible to get rid of. In England they 

 cannot get rid of the foot rot. They cannot get rid of the big 

 liver. Neither of those diseases ever trouble you much in Con- 

 necticut, but in all European countries they are more or less 

 prevalent. It has been said that sheep could not be kept to 

 advantage on damp, low lands, such as they have in Holland, 

 but they have never given up the sheep industry in Holland. 

 That is a country where they make every available piece of 

 ground bear something. And, of course, water is all around 

 it. And somehow or other they make the industry pay even 

 there. So, too, in England. England has its fields that ten- 

 ants are paying as high as seven fifty per annum rent per acre. 

 They pay almost as much in the way of rent as your farm is 

 going to cost you per acre. And yet, under such circumstances 

 they raise sheep, raise splendid mutton, which they put upon 

 the market and get fancy prices for. They have to get them 

 in order to pay those enormous rents, but their method of sheep 

 farming differs quite radically from ours, in that they keep a 

 good many more sheep to the acre. There are a good many 

 lessons which we can learn from the way they carry on the 

 industry over there, and there is no reason why you cannot do 

 well in the sheep industry and make it pay just as well as they 

 do. It seems to me that you farmers in Connecticut have a 

 good opportunity before you. As I understand it, you have 

 plenty of land which can be used for sheep raising, and you 

 have upon all sides of you plenty of good markets. It seems to 

 me, also, that you are in no danger of very serious competition, 

 so that you will most always be able to get good prices. It 

 is not the sheep that are raised on the far western plains that are 

 going to compete with you. You need have no fear of that. 

 You can also sell your wool here and make a bigger profit on it 

 than the farmers in the far west. It costs seven cents to get a 

 pound of wool from Albuquerque to Boston, and you may be 

 sure that the railroads will look out for their end of it and see 

 that they charge enough, so that those farmers cannot compete 

 with you, at any rate, seriously enough to crowd you out. 

 There is room enough for all. 



So far, I have discussed the subject from the poor man's 

 standpoint, or from the standpoint of the man who has not the 



