56 SHEEP INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES 



Richard Peters, at Belmont, 6 miles from Philadelphia, could see but 

 little prospect for sheep husbandry. There was no sale for any great 

 quantity of mutton ; the people kept too many dogs; the dryuess of 

 the season burned up the pasture for a great part of the year, and the 

 long winters rendered their keeping expensive and subjected the animal 

 to numberless disorders. He had tried the English sheep, which stood 

 the climate badly and soon degenerated. As to the fleece, it was scant, 

 3 pounds per sheep being an overcalculation. Wool was in some de- 

 mand just then, but it had been unsalable. He was in hopes that 

 manufactures would increase the demand, but the prospect was distant. 

 None were kept, within his knowledge, but in small numbers and as a 

 variety in a farmer's stock. They were close feeders and " destroy pas- 

 ture prodigiously." Upon this latter assertion Arthur Young makes 

 note that "this idea shows how little they know of sheep." 



In a subsequent communication to Washington Mr. Peters expressed 

 the opinion that if the sheep business was carried on to much extent 

 there would be a necessity for exportation. The establishment of con- 

 siderable manufactures would take off part of the mutton of the flocks, 

 besides using up the wool. There was but little or no export of wool to 

 foreign parts, which was consumed at home, where excellent coarse 

 cloths were made, in which a great proportion of the farmers were clad. 

 A variety of other woolen fabrics was also made. Returning to the 

 subject of the destruction by sheep of pasturage, he knew that they did 

 not eat so much in proportion as other beasts, and their dung was re- 

 markably fertilizing ; but they bit close, and the droughts and heats of 

 summer, which were long and periodical, burned up the roots. It was 

 a generally received opinion, in which he concurred, that they destroyed 

 pasture, and it was not found that "the more sheep we keep the more 

 we may ; " in fact, the converse was true. In countries where it was an 

 object and where there were better systems of farming with dripping 

 seasons it might be otherwise. But in the state of things at that time 

 (1793) he adhered to his former opinion that distributing sheep in 

 small numbers to every farmer would do better than any other plan. 

 He knew that better care could be taken of them in that way, for the 

 farmer could and, in fact, did attend to them without interfering too 

 much with his other affairs. Invariably the sheep of the small flocks 

 looked the best and had the most wool. With twenty sheep to each 

 farm capable of supporting them Judge Peters thought we might raise 

 a "prodigious number;" and then he dropped off on to the subject of 

 dogs, "too many being uselessly kept by the wealthy and not a few by 

 poor people, who do not feed them." The law, it was true, gave dam- 

 ages for the loss of sheep by dogs, but the farmers rarely prosecuted 

 these cases; being content Avith the first loss they preferred losing the 

 value of their sheep than to be fleeced by the lawyers in prosecuting 

 for damages. 



Washington was a careful and methodical farmer, keeping strict and 

 minute accounts and adhering to the adage to take care of the pennies 



