274 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



as fresh chicken or lamb. You tie a man down for an ex- 

 planation of that, and he says it has never been salted and that 

 it is really fresh. 



Now it seems to me, Mr. Chairman, that there are two 

 possible ways, or rather one of two possible ways by which 

 we can effectually deal with this question, and one is by the 

 construction of dog-proof fences. That is the way I am going 

 to try to handle it. We have got our flock built up now from 

 about thirty to one hundred. We have built it up to that in 

 the last three years. We have purchased fifty in the last three 

 years, and next year we shall have about fifty breeding ewes, 

 and a year later I hope to have a hundred or one hundred and 

 twenty-five. But we have taken the precaution to bring the 

 sheep in regularly at night, feeling that the danger of loss 

 came at night. This coming year I hope to be able to build 

 a dog-proof fence around a small area, so as to be able to 

 bring the sheep into that at night instead of having to bring 

 them into a building. That is one possible solution of the 

 trouble, as the greater part of the damage from dogs will be 

 found to occur at night or in the very early morning. 



Another possible solution of the situation is through a more 

 thorough control of the dogs, and I believe we are going to 

 find a possible solution in the periodic local scares that are 

 coming up in connection with hydrophobia, and if boards of 

 health can order dogs to be muzzled when found off their 

 owner's premises, they have equal power to order that they 

 shall be killed when found unmuzzled off their owners' 

 premises. I think there is a side or phase of the question 

 which is worth while for us farmers to consider, — whether 

 it is not possible that the law shall require that all dogs shall 

 be muzzled for twelve months in the year just as much as for 

 the selectmen or health officers to require that they shall be 

 muzzled for two or three months. 



Mr. Patterson. Along the line that Mr. Barber was 

 speaking relative to the dog tax going into the State's treasury 



