EAST OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 43 



rMmau Scot's lot down to Samuel Hickox's, jr., lot for to build a fulling- 

 mill." There is no evidence, however, that such a mill was built there 

 before the year 1728 or 1730. A fulling-mill was built on Eahantic 

 1 liver in 1693 by Peter Heckley, of New London, which was the first 

 in that town. The same town in 1730 granted to Lieut.-Col. John Liv- 

 ingston, of that place, what right it had to Sawmill Brook to erect a 



umill and fulling-mill thereon; and in 1721 Thomas Smith obtained 

 Ira ve to erect fulling and grist-mills at Upper Alewive Cove. Trumbull 

 ^tates that in 1713 there was but one clothier in Connecticut, and the 

 most lie could do was to full the cloth that was made. This statement 

 has been disputed as erroneous, the belief being that there were many 

 lotliiers and fulling-mills at that date. Much of the cloth was worn 

 msheared and unpressed. In 1736 John Davis, a clothier of the col- 

 >ny, proposed to " instruct the people in the process of woolen manu- 

 facture," but no particular effort was made in that direction. 



By an act of the general court in 1716 no one person was permitted 

 to turn more than 50 sheep on the highways with a keeper to " eat up 

 UK! consume the herbage thereon;" but an act of May, 1730, provided 

 hat the owners of sheep could meet within certain limits, as there should 

 be occasion, and in such meetings order that the sheep in such town 

 should be put together in a flock or flocks annually, and by a vote, ac- 

 01 ding to the number of sheep held by them, choose a clerk to make 

 'iitries of the sheep; also to choose sheep masters for the hiring of a 

 shepherd, and letting the flock to fold, to restrain ranis from going at 

 arge, and to secure flocks from dogs; and, six years later, authority 

 was given these sheep selectmen to kill dogs. In 1750 it was provided 

 that every town that did not agree to keep a flock should have the same 

 power to make acts relative to sheep as the owners of sheep had that 

 lived within the limits of any flock. 



Sheep at this time were comparatively plenty, and many were exported 

 from Xew London. A fair sample of a well-to-do farmer's estate shows, 

 in 1748, "four negro servants, about 50 head of horned cattle, 32 horses, 

 mares, and colts, and 812 sheep." Notwithstanding Coddington's sale 

 to Wiuthrop of some of the best English blood, not much can be said of 

 the sheep of Connecticut at the middle of the last century. One of the 

 earliest writers on American agriculture was Dr. Jared Eliot, a preacher 

 and botanist. He was grandson of John Eliot, the apostle of the In- 

 dians, and was born in Connecticut in 1685. He was living at Killing- 

 worth, in that State, in 1747, and in the following year began the pub- 

 lication of some essays upon field husbandry in New England which 

 appeared in the journals of that day and attracted much attention. 

 These essays, running from 1748 to 1759, were collected and published 

 in a volume in 1760. Almost the first words of the reverend farmer- 

 author are: 



A better breed of sheep is what we want. The English breed of Cotswool sheep 

 can not be obtained, or at least without great difficulty; for wool and live sheep are 

 contraband goods, which all strangers are prohibited from carrying out on pain of 



