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It will be sometime I fear, before an Agricultural Society 

 with Congressional aids will be established in this Country; — we must 

 walk as other countries have done before we can run. Smaller Societies 

 must prepare the v/ay for greater, but with the light before us, I hope 

 we shall not be so slow in maturation as older nations have been. — 

 An attempt, as you will perceive by the enclosed outlines of a plan, 

 is making to establish a State Society in Pennsylvania for agricul- 

 tural improvements. — If it succeeds, it will be a step in the ladder, 

 at present it is too much in embryo to decide on the result. — 



Our domestic animals, as well as our agriculture, are inferior 

 to yours in point of si^e but this does not proceed from any defect 

 in the stamina of thelcj^ut to deficient care in providing for their 

 support; experience having abundantly evinced that where our pasture 

 areas well improved as the soil & climate will admit; — where a com- 

 petent store of wholesome provender is laid up and proper care used 

 in serving it, that our horses, black cattle. Sheep &c. are not 

 inferior to the best of their respective kinds which have been im- 

 ported from England. — Nor is the wool of our Sheep inferior to that 

 of the common sort with you: — as a proof — after the Peace of Paris in 

 1783, and my return to the occupations of a farmer, I paid particular 

 attention to my breed of sheep (of which I usually kept about seven 

 or eight hundred) . — By this attention, at the shearing of 1789, the 

 fleeces yielded me the average quantity of 5:|-£ of wool; — a fleece of 

 which, promiscuously taken, I sent to Mr. Arthar Young, who put it, 

 for examination, into the hands of Manufacturers. — These pronounced 

 it to^ be equal in quality to the Kentish Wool. — In this same year, 

 i. 6^^789 I was again called from home, and have not had it in my 

 power since to pay any attention to my farm;— The consequence of which 

 is, that my Sheep, at the last shearing, yielded me not more than 

 2^£,. — This is not a single instance of the difference between care 

 and neglect. — Nor is the difference between good & bad management 

 confined to that species of Stock; for we find that good pastures and 

 proper attention, can & does, fill our markets with beef of seven, 

 eight & more hundred weight the four quarters; whereas from 450 to 

 500 (especially in the States South of this where less attention 

 hitherto has been paid to grass) may be found about the average 

 weight. — In this market, some Bullocks were killed in the months of 

 March & April last, the weights of wch, as taken from the accounts 

 which were published at the time, you will find in a paper enclosed. — 

 These were pampered steers, but from 800 to a thousand, the four quart- 

 ers, is no uncommon weight.^' 



liW 



\ Your general history of Sheep, with observations thereon, and 

 the proper mode of managing them, will be an interesting work when 



