PROCEEDINGS OF THE FARMERS' CLUB. 355 



those who have none, or to those who can keep a few more. 

 Sheep should be propagated and handled with as much care as 

 if we had but a few flocks in the country. There are tens of 

 thousands of localities in the west, ungrazed, where, on each, a 

 man can keep 200 sheep at 30 cents a head per year, and in too 

 many other places farmers are raising corn instead of sheep. 

 Wool is worth 45 cents. Corn — I spoke of that before — but a 

 pound of wool can be produced for what it will cost to raise a 

 bushel of corn, or to get a few sticks of cord-wood. The motto of 

 every farmer should be to raise sheep and kill dogs. 



More than all — and this is a very important matter — the soil 

 of a farm where many sheep are kept continually, increases in 

 valu,e ; it is continually impoverished when grain is raised. The 

 very best part of the soil of hundreds of thousands of our farms 

 is annually transported to Europe in the shape of grain, much 

 of it is exchanged for wool, and all of it, for what we ought to 

 hang our heads in shame for not producing. It is desirable, 

 since Ave are about it, that this war last long enough to cure us 

 of this folly, and to learn us how to be a self-sustaining nation. 

 And when the war ends we want to see this result — we want to 

 see a man, on buying a piece of broadcloth, know that it is made 

 of wool, and we want to see him hesitate on buying a piece of 

 cotton cloth for fear there may be wool in it. The mythological 

 story of the Golden Fleece conveys the idea of the golden profits 

 of sheep raising. 



ORCHARDS. 



Now is the time to plant orchards, because many will neglect 

 or be unable to do so. It is a most fortunate moment for this 

 business, and one who has a taste for it need not fear results if 

 he plant good trees, and will inform himself of valuable and late 

 methods of treatment. Some fancy the business likely to be 

 overdone, but this story has always been told, and yet there are 

 no 100 trees of good fruit anywhere in the country which are 

 not worth more than any ten acres of grain. I know of an 

 orchard of fine bearing trees, 4,000 in number, which were set 

 out four years ago this coming May. Foolish and lazy farmers, 

 what have you been doing that you have not orchards of fine 

 fruit ? Among six millions of people in the west, forty -nine 

 families in fifty are without apples in winter, much less have 

 they pears and early peaches. A nation given to fruit-growing 

 always is educated and wealthy; exclusively grain-growing, 



