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our climate and mode of keeping and to the production of wool 

 and mutton. As yet, these sheep have been diffused in the 

 State in a very limited degree ; but as some of the best of the 

 kind for breeding have been introduced into the country, and 

 are available to the farmers upon reasonable terms, we may- 

 hope that this stock will soon be appreciated and greatly ex- 

 tended. 



Of what is called our native sheep, we can scarcely be said 

 to have any distinct race. The sheep which our farmers were 

 accustomed to keep, before the introduction of the fine-wooled 

 varieties, were a large, coarse-boned, and coarse-wooled animal, 

 yielding from three to four pounds of coarse wool, extremely 

 hardy, propagating fast, and presenting occasionally accidental 

 individuals of great thrift and size. But the fine-wooled sheep 

 have been so extensively spread in the country, that it is ex- 

 tremely difficult to find any animals, which are not more or 

 less tinctured with their blood. By a selection, however, from 

 what remains of the old stock, individuals are often found ad- 

 mirably suited for stall-feeding for the market. 



The demand for mutton within twenty years past has been 

 constantly increasing, and so is likely to continue. This has 

 given much encouragement to the business of fatting wethers 

 for the market ; and, in general, this, it is believed, has paid a 

 much better profit than the stall-feeding of beef. The con- 

 sumption of the produce of the farm upon the farm is, in this 

 way, rendered easy. The manure produced by the folding and 

 stall-feeding of sheep, especially where, as should always be 

 the case, they are abundantly supplied with litter and likewise 

 with turnips, or other succulent vegetables, is equal in value 

 to any which can be produced in its application to cultivated 

 grain crops, or to grass lands ; and where the raw material is 

 abundant, may be made in quantities which would surprise 

 the inexperienced. It is in England with sheep, as it is with 

 neat-cattle, that many of their best sheep are fatted upon straw 

 and turnips, without either hay or grain. The fatting of ani- 

 mals by such a process, must undoubtedly require a much longer 



