FINE WOOL SHEEP HUSBANDRY. 163 



tation, give the cultivator of our "New York lands 

 advantages over the cultivator of remote and cheap 

 ones, which tend in a considerable degree to equalize 

 their profits. Were this otherwise, what help is there 

 for us? Can we let our costly lands lie idle because 

 there are cheaper ones in the West and South ? The 

 only question with us is, what staples we can grow 

 most profitably. 



Besides, on our grain-growing soils, at least, sheep 

 are an absolute necessity of good farming. The 

 growing of wheat, clover-seed, &c., cannot be carried 

 on economically and systematically without some de- 

 pasturing and manure-producing animal. For both 

 of these purposes, the sheep is a vastly more profita- 

 ble animal than any other. Mr. Johnson, of Geneva, 

 and Gen. Harmon, of Wheatland, two as good wheat 

 farmers as there are in the State, have thrown a flood 

 of light on this subject by their experiments and 

 their writings.* Leading clover-seed raisers assure me 



* Since the above was written, I have received a letter from Mr. 

 Johnson on the subject. He says that " sheep and wheat farming 

 ought to go hand-in-hand in this country," that what "he has made in 

 the last forty years has been in a large proportion by sheep." He has 

 " fed (fatted) sheep in winter for over thirty years, and with the ex- 

 ception of 1841-'42 they have always paid the cost of feeding, and 

 some years left a handsome profit." That is to say, for every year but 

 one, during that period, he has converted the hay, grain, &c., of his 

 farm into manure on the farm, and got back the full price of those 

 products and cost of feeding ; and in some years he has done better 

 than this. " His profits have been better since 1840, when he com- 

 menced wintering on straw and oil-cake or grain. After 1846 he kept 

 no regular flock, but bought them in the fall and sold them usually in 

 March or April. In some instances he held them until after shearing, 

 but found that he seldom did as well as by selling earlier." 



Gen. Harmon, and I think a majority of wheat farmers who have 

 sheep, prefer keeping a permanent breeding flock. This is a question 



