114 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



The men who planted themselves on the coast of Massachu- 

 setts Bay came not only for religious freedom but to speedily 

 build themselves homes with such necessaries and comforts 

 as they enjoyed in the homes they had left behind them, by 

 laboring at the same occupations at which they had wrought 

 in England. The list of trades and those who worked in 

 them would astonish one, from glass workers to needle 

 makers; the names of Joseph Jenks, John Pearson, Edward 

 Gibbon, Israel Stoughton and others who started manufact- 

 ures should be kept in perpetual remembrance. 



Our climate is admirably adapted to sheep growing, one 

 proof of which is that in no country are sheep so little liable 

 to disease as in New England. Our rough hills covered 

 with sweet herbage from which all superfluous water disap- 

 pears about as fast as it falls, and our sharp, dry winds, 

 are naturally adapted to the wants and conditions of sheep, 

 which always thrive best in the purest and most bracing 

 atmosphere. Wet seasons and wet soils are destructive to 

 sheep. The New England flock master is forced to recognize 

 what the English sheep raisers were long in learning, — the 

 economy and benefit of shelter in winter, even in their less 

 rigorous climate. The truth is that sheep in New England, 

 if well sheltered and furnished with proper food, will pro- 

 duce better wool and mutton and a larger increase of lambs 

 than sheep exposed, even in the genial climate of Virginia. 

 Sheep are most indiscriminate feeders, and delight in a 

 change of food. One who takes the pains to observe them 

 when feeding will be surprised at the continual shifting they 

 make from one species of herbage to another, and upon our 

 hills and valleys there is to be found the full variety which 

 their nature requires. 



The first mill for weaving and finishing fine cloth was at 

 Pittsfield, run by Arthur Scholfield, a weaver from York- 

 shire, who settled here and made the first broadcloth, fine 

 enough for any gentleman's wear at that time. Several 

 hundred yards of homespun were annually dressed at Rowley 

 and Salem. That there was abundant wool of common kind 

 widely distributed is shown by this fact, among others, that 

 in the first years of this century two thousand pairs of hand- 

 knit stockings were annually exported from the Island of 

 Martha's Vineyard. 



