164: FINE WOOL SHEEP HUSBANDRY. 



that they must have sheep to carry on that culture 

 profitably. Sheep would be more profitable than 

 cows on a multitude of the high, thin-soiled dairy 

 farms of our State ; and every person who has kept 

 the two animals ought to know that sheep will enrich 

 such lands far more rapidly than cows.* On the 

 imperfectly cleared and briery lands of our grazing 

 regions, sheep will more than pay for their summer 

 keep, for several years, merely in clearing and cleaning 

 up the land. They effectually exterminate the black- 

 berry (Rubus villosus et trivialis\ and raspberry 

 (Rubus strigosus et occidentalis\ the common pests 

 in such situations, and they banish or prevent the 

 spread of many other troublesome shrubs and weeds, f 



of convenience depending upon incidental considerations which this 

 is not the place to discuss. 



* If milch cows are not returned to their pastures at night in sum- 

 mer, or the manure made in the night is not returned to the pastures, 

 the difference in the two animals in the particular named in the text 

 is still greater. Even grazing cattle kept constantly in the pastures, 

 and whose manure is much better than that of dairy cows, are still 

 greatly inferior to the sheep in enriching land. The manure of the 

 sheep is stronger, better distributed, and distributed in a way that 

 admits of little loss. The small round pellets soon work down among 

 the roots of the grass, and are in a great measure protected from sun 

 and wind. Each pellet has a coat of mucus which still further protects 

 it. On taking one of these out of the grass, it will be found the 

 moisture is gradually dissolving it on the lower side, directly among 

 the roots, while the upper coated surface remains entire. Finally, if 

 there are hill-tops, dry knolls, or elevations of any kind in the pasture, 

 the sheep almost invariably lie on them nights, thus depositing an 

 extra portion of manure on the least fertile part of the land, and 

 where the wash of it will be less wasted. The manure of the milch 

 cow, apart from its intrinsic inferiority, is deposited in masses which 

 give up their best contents to the atmosphere before they are dry 

 enough to bo beaten to pieces and distributed over the soil. 



f Two years since I hired forty acres of pasture, five or six of which 



