26 



copper rivet, numbered on one side, with my initials on the reverse. These are 

 inserted after the ear has healed from the paucturc made with a No. 10 harness 

 punch. When a sheep is being- shorn, its number is taken, the fleece when off 

 ia weighed, and this last year, if a two-year old ewe did not raise a lamb and 

 shear four and a half pounds of washed wool, she was put into the draft flock 

 for sale. At the next .shearing I shall raise thG standard to five pounds. My 

 sheep are rapidly becoming what are now known as Spanish sheep. The 

 principal buck weighed seventy pounds before shearing, and his fleece weighed 

 twelve pounds of clean free washed wool. Enclosed find a sample of seven 

 months' growth. I have no confidence in those high-priced, fancy-faced, oily 

 bucks, peddled through the country. They are like Peter Pindar's razors 

 made to sell. My bucks are kept in an enclosure of one acre, with an open 

 shed on three sides, shingled with straw. This yard has a hay barn in the 

 centre, several straw stacks, and is partitioned off so that no more than fifty 

 sheep feed together. The yai-d is upon a twenty feet elevation, above an en- 

 during stream, to which the sheep always go for drink after each meal. The 

 stream is strongly impregnated with iron, to which I attribute the general good 

 liealth of the flock and healthy strong lambs. The ammonia in snow and 

 magnesia in Av.iter i-^, in my opinion, a fruitful source of goitre or swelled glands 

 in lambs. 



With clover hay in the barn at six dollars per ton, corn at fifty cents, bran 

 at ten dollars per ton, straw and corn fodder accumulating on a farm to feed 

 therewith, sheep can be kept one year and phorn for SI 50 per head, and give 

 their entire droppings to manure with as profit. 



The season last past the forage was higher, and it will be seen the flock is 

 charged with $50 for washing and shearing, and $2 each for board. A sheep 

 should receive daily about 3 per cent, of its live weight in good clover hay in 

 winter, or its equivolent. The tables found in your report of 1862, page 273, 

 are unquestionable, and of great value to the practical shepherd. By 3 per 

 cent, of live weight daily, as a standard, it is not difficult to arrive at a just 

 estimate of the cost of wintering, when the price of forage is established. 



Hoping to hear from you often. 

 I am, 3'ours, 



C. S. POTTER. 



Hon. I. Newton, 



Waskington, D. C. 



THE DEPART.IIENT PLAN OF E->TIMAT[Nrr THE ASIOUNT OF CROP.■^ TESTED. 



We have, at different times, made known the plan of estimating the annual 

 products of the country by the Department of Agriculture. It necessarily 

 must be tested, and these trials will be noticed in these reports ; for we have 

 now so much confidence in the plan itself, that whatever errors may be found 

 in the results, we believe will be in mistake in details, which may be corrected, 

 and not a radical wrong in the plan itself. 



Wc have before us two tests, as severe as the plan could be subjected to, 

 because they refer to the tobacco and hog crops — one vegetable, the other 

 animal, and two of our most changing crops since 1861 ; the one (tobacco) so 

 vastly increasing in the loyal States, and the other so greatly decreasing. 



In Rider & Son's annual tobacco circular for New York there is this state- 

 ment : 



