109 



were sold was low compared with many sales at the time. 

 The native blood predominated in them. 



These are the most exact experiments which have come 

 within my knowledge in regard to the fatting of wethers. 

 The result is in a degree subject to the same caprices and fluc- 

 tuations as the fatting of beef; but in general, under good man- 

 agement, it affords a compensatory return. The towns of 

 Shelburne and Conway, are particularly interested in this mat- 

 ter, and they are in the habit of sending annually many very 

 fat sheep to Brighton market. The ordinary commissions 

 charged for driving fat sheep from Connecticut river to Boston, 

 are from twenty-five cents to thirty-tliree cents each ; fifty 

 cents are sometimes charged, where the sheep are remarkably 

 valuable. 



I will subjoin some miscellaneous notes, which will serve to 

 illustrate the general mode of keeping sheep. 



D. B. has sixty wether sheep in preparation for market. He 

 allows them as much hay as they will eat, and three pecks of 

 corn and two bushels of potatoes daily among the whole. He 

 will, by degrees, increase their feed. 



A. A. has seventy-five fatting sheep, and having lately added 

 to their feed, gives them five pecks of corn per day and one 

 bushel of potatoes with as much hay as they will consume, 

 feeding them five times a day. He mentions the case of an 

 excellent flock of sheep which were fatted upon corn, with 

 liberty to go to a stock of poor meadow at their pleasure. To 

 use his own expression, " the corn did the work." The qual- 

 ity of the hay does not seem important. 



O. N., one of the best feeders in the country, has fifty-five 

 sheep in one yard. At daylight he gives them a feed of corn, 

 dividing it so as to give the flock about one bushel and a peck 

 in the course of the day ; after that, a foddering of hay ; at 

 nine o'clock, another foddering of hay ; at twelve o'clock, an- 

 other feeding of corn, the same as in the morning ; after which, 

 another feeding of hay ; at four o'clock, p. m., another feeding 

 of hay and the same measure of corn as before. He thinks it 



