1907.] DISCUSSION. 265 



awaiting his appearance. It was, of course, utterly impossible 

 for him to do our interest justice at any such short notice, 

 and I will guarantee that they had known it weeks before. 



A Member. Mr. President, I have been very much in- 

 terested in the talk of Mr. Ward, and also that of Mr. Stadt- 

 mueller. I agree with him exactly on some points, but when 

 he says that the dog should be considered as a secondary 

 matter I would like to ask him how we are going to consider 

 the dog a secondary matter when we have about sixty thou- 

 sand of them in the State and less than half that of sheep. 

 It looks to me as if the dog was fast getting to be a primary 

 matter. 



This is a pretty serious question to the farming interest. 

 Within three months, in my own town, every flock of sheep, 

 I think, in the town has been used up to some extent by dogs. 

 Every sheep man knows that the damage is not limited to the 

 sheep that the dogs kill, and that you can be paid for, and when 

 he spoke about dogs roaming over the fields, and that they 

 should be restrained, I agreed with him perfectly. I think 

 they should be taken care of at home. There is no use of de- 

 pending on the town officials, or on anybody that holds office 

 in the town, doing anything about it, for every time you shoot 

 a dog you lose a vote. It is not going to solve the difficulty 

 to depend on local men. They haven't got the pluck to do it. 

 I think we want something pretty stringent to settle this dog 

 business. Something ought to be done to kill off about sev- 

 enty-five per cent, of what we have in the State. It would not 

 hurt anybody materially if that w.as done. 



Mr. Ward touched upon some very nice points. I have 

 been a sheep raiser all my life, and my father before me. I 

 agree with him that we have got thousands of acres in Con- 

 necticut that are capable of feeding nothing else but sheep, and 

 if the boys are going to the city today it is because they have 

 got discouraged on the farms, and the result of it is, as Mr. 

 Ward remarked, help is very scarce. I have a farm away up 



