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The Country Gentlemaii s Magazine 



has gradually resolved itself into confusion 

 worse confounded. Now that the farmers do 

 not breed lambs, there are no sheep in the 

 markets. Formerly he had plenty of sheep 

 but no food to feed them, now he has plenty 

 of food but no sheep to eat it. Our agri- 

 cultural friends have ere now discovered 

 that it is in the long run the best policy to 

 breed their own sheep, and run the risk of 

 having to sell in consequence of lack of 

 fodder, rather than trust to buy in the 

 market if the season turns out favourable to 

 the growth of the feed ; the reason being 

 obvious — in the one case the farmers are all 

 sellers — there are no buyers ; in the other all 

 are buyers — there are no sellers. In fact, 

 our friends were too quick to learn, 

 and hastily adopted a course of action 

 which if they had calmly considered 

 the matter they would have discovered was 

 individually right, but collectively wrong, 

 and no real safeguard against a misfortune 

 which they could not have avoided ; a 

 misfortune, too, which by no means is certain 

 to be repeated yearly, but one which no fore- 

 sight on their part can guard against if it 

 should occur again. Since the farmers liave 

 not bred the usual number of sheep during 

 the past few years, the lambs vv^hich have 

 been born during the past season are not in 

 the aggregate as numerous as usual, although 

 the season has been a productive one, and so 

 those few farmers who possess lambs are not, 

 very naturally, at all desirous of selling them. 



They are required to increase their stock, 

 which has been allowed, in consequence of 

 the panic, to fall considerably below the 

 average. Therefore lamb is dear, very dear, 

 and we think we are not wrong in prognosti- 

 cating, from the cautious destruction of 

 these innocent creatures, that in 1873 lamb 

 will be considerably cheaper. Affairs in the 

 agricultural world will most likely by that time 

 resume their normal condition ; now they are 

 topsy-turvy ; and the live stock in the country 

 will be more numerous, unless of course un- 

 foreseen events may occur, and we should 

 suffer durhig the present summer from as 

 severe a drought as has caused us to pay so 

 dearly for butchers' meat during the past few 

 years. At present the weather has been un- 

 usually favourable for green crops. We can- 

 not complain of parching heat ; in fact, as 

 the Rev. Canon Sydney Smith used to say, 

 " Summer has set in with its usual severity." 

 Our friends in the country will, perhaps, par- 

 don us for suggesting that they have an idea 

 that mutton will be dearer still ; and this, 

 perhaps, may also have much to do with their 

 unwillingness to come to terms with the 

 butcher for the sale of their lambs ; but this 

 hope, we venture to predict, will turn out to 

 be a delusive fallacy. INIutton cannot be 

 dearer ; its high price^ is due to the circum- 

 stances stated above in the case of lamb, and 

 when sheep in the country is equal to the 

 consumption of the fodder grown, mutton as 

 well as lamb nu;st become cheaper. 



