214 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



its habit of continually cropping the tender shoots of brakes, 

 and bushes (even where the best grasses are abundant,) must 

 exhaust and eradicate them. 



" We cannot afford to keep sheep just for their wool," says 

 one sheep-raiser, and this idea seemed to be fully carried out 

 at the fair, as none but the larger and hardier breeds of sheep, 

 viz.: The South Downs, Cotswold, Leicester, and native, which 



:^^m^: 





Cotswold Ewe, "Lady Gay." H. G. White, South Framingham. 



furnish the best mutton were represented there. The farmers 

 in this vicinity show good judgment in selecting their breeds of 

 sheep, because they not only furnish more and better mutton 

 than other breeds, but the wool which they produce can be sold 

 at comparatively better prices than formerly. There is a 

 demand for these combing wools which must increase for years, 

 as new machinery, involving a large amount of capital, is beilig 

 put in operation for the purpose of manufacturing these long 

 combing wools, the production of just the breeds of sheep 

 exhibited at the fair. Now it would be folly to doubt of our 

 success in the manufacture of worsted goods, and to show how 

 great a demand there may be for the manufactured articles, we 

 quote from a writer in the United States Economist, who says : 

 " We imported into this country last year $17,367,672 of 

 worsted and cotton, and worsted fabrics ;" and urges us to pro- 

 duce the wool. The manufacturers are doing their part in 



