. 232 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



at too slow a rate. All farmers admit the profitableness of this 

 department of husbandry, but almost all seem to shrink from 

 entering «ipon it. Two reasons are generally assigned for this 

 hesitancy — the danger of I^ss from dogs, and the necessity of 

 better fences. The first reason has less significance now than 

 in former years ; the last never had much force, ai^ the farmer 

 loses nothing by being compelled to keep his fences in good 

 order. The true causes of the want of progress in sheep 

 husbandry are, perhaps, the fact that our farmers have lost the 

 habit of keeping sheep, and a failure to appreciate all the 

 advantages of this branch of their business. 



The committee are of opinion that there are but few farmers 

 in our county who ouglit not to have from twenty-five to seven- 

 ty-five sheep, not only on account of the profit of raising wool 

 and mutton, but because, also, of the many indirect advantages 

 derived from a flock of sheep on a farm. The old pastures, 

 scant of grass, but overrun by briars, weeds and brush, which 

 constitute the larger portion of the land under fence in the 

 county can be renovated in no way so well as by sheep. They 

 consume the briars and weeds, and, depositing manure just 

 where it is needed, they cause the nutritive grasses to occupy 

 the place of the herbage which no other animals would eat. 



Where there is an insufficiency of this old pasture slieep may 

 be turned into the woods, where they will find a good living fof 

 seven months in the year, and partly subsist even in winter. 

 If they are induced to return home every night the owner may 

 enclose them wherever he wishes the manure to fall, which he 

 will find to be of very great value. 



Sheep kept thus, in waste pasture or in the woods, if 

 economically managed, ought not to cost more than one dollar 

 and tweftty-five 'cents per head during the winter, which is 

 pactically the case for the whole year. In almost all cases the 

 wool will j)ay this expense, leaving the lambs as profit. 



Tiiat our sheep ought to be improved is very generally felt 

 and admitted, and, if the means were easily accessible, this 

 would doubtless be accomplished. There seems to be no doubt 

 about the kind of blood needed to iuipro^^ our stock. Public 

 opinion points unmistakably in the direction of the leading 

 English breeds, Leicesters, Cotswolds and South Downs, as the 

 best sheep for our purposes. Of these, the South Downs are 



