248 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



quite a record of what he had found, and of his conclusions 

 and experiences. Among other things he wrote to a friend, 

 and in the letter made this statement : " In all my experience 

 I never yet have found the best quality of mutton "and a thick, 

 healthy fleece of wool in the same animal," but there are lots 

 of people, intelligent people, who do not know as much as 

 Buckley knew two hundred and forty years ago. 



I have sold a good many sheep in my life. I have been 

 breeding pure-bred sheep, and I have sent them across the 

 Pacific to Japan, to Europe, lots of them, to South America, 

 and into nearly every county in the eastern states, and that 

 means a lot of correspondence, and from all that experience 

 let me tell you this fact. About three men out of four when 

 they want to buy a ram, the first question they will ask is, 

 how cheap can you sell it, and they want one that will insure 

 wool all over the face. Well, I have to tell them a good many 

 times, that it is not wool that we are growing, but it is mutton, 

 but somehow or other it makes a great deal of diflference with 

 them to be told that he has wool all over the face. But that 

 aside, it is nevertheless a fact that you cannot get mutton and 

 wool in the same animal. If you want a large, healthy, heavy 

 fleece of wool, you must raise a different breed than you do 

 if you are after mutton. We want a good carcass, a heavy, 

 fleshy, massive carcass of mutton, and when you get that you 

 can make up your mind that you have got a good quality and 

 can get a good price for it in the market, and they will take 

 all the wool there is with it. So, if you are raising mutton, do 

 not pay any attention to the fleece. When you find that kind 

 of a sheep you want to buy it because the best that you can find 

 are poor enopgh. 



Now if you are breeding lambs to sell, just let me give you 

 a little advice. There ought to be a good market for lambs in 

 Connecticut, because, as I have seen this state, it contains a 

 great many little towns scattered all through the farming 

 sections, and some places are filled through the summer with 

 a class of people, summer boarders, who are willing to pay 

 high prices if they can have just what they want to eat, and 

 you people can supply that demand with the very highest 

 quality of meat that can be put into any man's stomach. For 

 that purpose you want some of the dark-faced, thick, fleshy, 

 breeds of sheep, like the Shropshire or Southdown. I think 



