170 FINE WOOL SHEEP HUSBANDRY. 



as the best cows, and require far less labor. No dairy- 

 farmer who has suitable land and fixtures for his busi- 

 ness, is called upon to give up the avocation he best 

 understands, and sacrifice his fixtures and cattle to 

 embark in a new pursuit, because he has found a sin- 

 gle year of depressed prices. JST o farmer engaged in 

 any highly remunerative husbandry should abandon 

 it for another. We want no more Merino manias! 

 The proper increase in wool production can be attain- 

 ed by putting sheep on soils too poor for profitable 

 dairying, by weeding out useless and unprofitable 

 horses, by substituting sheep for grazing cattle on 

 grain and other farms where they are most profitable, 

 by depasturing lands now uselessly in timber, bram- 

 bles, &c., and by raising proper crops to assist in 

 cheaply wintering sheep.* 



And the growth of wool is peculiarly adapted to 

 the pecuniary means and the circumstances of a por- 

 tion of our rural population. Their capital is mostly 

 in land. Hired labor is costly. Sheep husbandry 

 will render all their cleared land profitably product- 

 ive at a less annual expenditure for labor than any 

 other branch of farming. By reason of the rapid in- 

 crease of sheep, and the great facility of promptly 

 improving inferior ones, they will stock a farm well 

 more expeditiously, and with far less outlay than 

 other animals.f And, lastly, the ordinary processes 



* Sheep can be better and far more economically wintered on hay, 

 straw, and turnips, or beets, than on clear hay. By raising these roots, 

 then, the farmer can save considerable meadow land and increase his 

 pasture, and thus the farm be made to carry more sheep. 



f Soon after shearing, 15 and sometimes 20 ordinary coarse grade 

 ewes can be purchased for $30, the price of a dairy cow. On com- 

 mon keep, these will yield an average of three and a half pounds of 



