I:\ST OF Tin: M'SSISSIPPI RIVER, 337 



some improvement was made, particularly in the Merino flocks, and 

 the secretary of the Maine board of agriculture reported, in 1875, 

 tli at there were several good flocks in Somerset County, and of fifteen 

 of these, where the average number of sheep in the flock was 147, the 

 average weight of the fleece was 6.16 pounds for all ages and both sexes 

 of Spanish Merino and high grades. The census of 1880 returned 

 116,910 sheep in this county, nearly double the number of any other 

 county in the State and a little more than one-fifth of the whole num- 

 ber in the State. These sheep were almost wholly Merinos and their 

 grades, but there were thoroughbreds of improved English sheep also. 

 There were also full-blooded Southdowns, Oxfordshires, Hampshires, 

 Cotswolds, and Shropshires in the State in large numbers, and cross- 

 breds were consequently widely introduced. These made excellent 

 mutton, and of the 626,608 sheep sold in the Boston market in 1882, 

 Maine supplied 36,656. 



A great impetus was given to the raising of sheep in Aroostook for 

 the Bangor and Boston markets by the erection of immense slaughter- 

 ing establishments at Houlton in 1883. Previous to this time a large 

 business had been done by persons in buying up sheep and lambs and 

 shipping them to Boston but the fame of Aroostook mutton in that 

 market, and the shrinkage that ensued from shipping alive, caused 

 Messrs. Swift & Maxfield to take possession of that market, as they had 

 done of the beef market of Chicago. They filled ice-houses in 1882->83, 

 erected a slaughterhouse of large capacity in the summer of 1883, and 

 purchased fifteen refrigerator cars built expressly for the business. The 

 fall of 1883 this business was put in operation, and 600 sheep and lambs 

 were daily dressed for the Boston market. After being kept thirty-six 

 hours in ice closets they are forwarded by refrigerator cars to their 

 destination. Over 30,000 sheep and lambs were thus consumed in the 

 fall of 1883, and later in the season fat wethers were slaughtered for 

 the export trade.* 



The Maine coast has many islands, most of them well adapted to the 

 grazing or keeping of sheep throughout the year, with no shelter but 

 such as is afforded by the low evergreens growing upon the islands, 

 and without feeding them during the winter from stored forage. There 

 arc many instances of successful sheep farming on these islands, two 

 of which can be noted. In 1874 Mr. Gilbert Longfellow, of Machias, 

 furnished the publishers of the Bulletin of the National Association of 

 Wool Manufacturers a leaf from his experience. Mr. Longfellow owned 

 an island of 1,400 acres, situated in Englishman's Bay, south of the 

 town of Jonesboro. This island has upon it several hundred acres 

 of the very best tillage land and about 200 acres of grass pasture. 

 Half of the island was heavily wooded with spruce, fir, birch, maple, 

 ete. It opens on the east to the full ocean, which rolled in upon it 



* The Climate, Soil, Physical Resources, ^nd AgricijltijraJ. Capabilities of 

 Samuel L. Boardman. 



22990 22 



