138 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



attention to early frosts, drag the ground thoroughly, sow 

 the peas, and plough them under about four inches deep. 

 After the peas are ploughed under, sow on the top from 

 three pecks to a bushel of oats to an acre, to assist in holding 

 up the peas. Cut the crop when ready with an ordinary 

 mower or reaper. We find that we can get from an acre of 

 peas the equivalent in value of 4,500 pounds of bran. 



Mr. Gkixxell. I want to say that some two or three 

 weeks ago I prepared some circulars containing about a 

 dozen questions, and sent them around to various gentlemen 

 represented to me as being sheep raisers. I sent them out 

 by the hundred. I have received over sixty replies to those 

 circulars. They contain a great deal of very interesting 

 matter, which, if tabulated, would embrace all that has been 

 said to you in regard to the keeping of sheep, — the cost, the 

 profit, and so on. 



The Chairman. Well, gentlemen, we arc gathering a 

 good deal of information about the raising of sheep ; but 

 there is one thing which we want to learn a little something 

 about, and that is about our old Arab friend. We have an 

 old friend of the Board here who knows more or less about 

 the tariff. I should like to hear from the Hon. John E. 

 Russell. 



Hon. John E. Russell (of Leicester). Mr. Chairman, 

 Members of the Board, and Gentlemen : It is eleven years 

 last August since I was elected Secretary of the Board of 

 Agriculture, and during that year I said several times in 

 public, that if at the end of five years I had not increased 

 the sheep in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts by my 

 advocacy of sheep husbandry to the number of half a million, 

 I should feel that I had been secretary in vain. After six 

 or seven years I retired from the office, and there were about 

 half or two-thirds as many sheep in the Commonwealth as 

 when I began to advocate sheep husbandry. Otherwise per- 

 haps I was of service to the Commonwealth in my position ; 

 I flatter myself that I was, but I did not increase the interest 

 of the farmers of the State of Massachusetts in sheep hus- 

 bandry. We had very animated meetings and institutes all 

 over the Commonwealth, but I notice that there has been 

 one very great step of progress taken. This is the first pub- 



