466 SHEEP INDUSTRY OF THE U1STITED STATES 



to supply the families on it with milk and butter. Mr. Chamberlain's 

 plan, when he first commenced making manure by using sheep, was to 

 spread it thinly, so as to go over all the surface he could and make clo- 

 ver grow; and he said that, when he had brought his land to where it 

 would produce clover, improvement thenceforth was easy and rapid. 

 The sheep not only gave the first impulse, but were all the time depended 

 upon as the great manure-producing power. 



What is true in England, what is true in New York, is true also on 

 some of the lands of the West and other places. Mr. Eli Stilson, of 

 Wisconsin, by keeping sheep, is able to raise 24 bushels of wheat to 

 the acre, while the average yield of wheat in Wisconsin is less than 

 half that. There are cases in Vermont where sheep farmers have been 

 compelled to abandon one farm after another as they become too fertile 

 for profitable sheep growing. Mr. George Geddes, of New York, who 

 raised sheep for many years in connection with wheat, said that with 

 one sheep to the acre of cultivated land, pasture, and meadow, he 

 raised more bushels of grain on the average than he did when he had no 

 sheep to manufacture his coarse forage into manure, and to enrich his 

 pastures to prepare them for the grain crop ; and that, while producing 

 crops on less acres and at less cost than he did before he kept sheep, 

 he had in addition the wool and the mutton produced by the sheep. 



Instances similar to these can be multiplied in every State, and the 

 attending success can be secured any where in the South, and nowhere 

 to better advantage than on the worn-out tobacco fields of Virginia and 

 Maryland. They can be made to support a profitable sheep husbandry 

 and the sheep can be made to renew the fertility of the lands. In this 

 economy the grade Merinos will find their proper place in localities and 

 barrens where at first less hardy breeds would starve. 



In 1840 the number of sheep in the State was 1,293,772; in 1850, it 

 was 1,310,004, and in 1860 it was 1,043,269. West Virginia was 

 detached in 1862, and the figures for Virginia since that time are as 

 follows : 



1870 370,145 



1875 367, 500 



1880 49 7;289 



1885 477,450 



444,563 



There was a decline in the number of sheep from 1880 to 1890 of about 

 10 per cent, and various causes are assigned. The Agricultural Report 

 for 1887 gave as a reason the low price of wool and mutton, and the con- 

 sequent loss of interest in them, though where attention was given bet- 

 ter breeds were being raised, and in some localities farmers were begin- 

 ning to set a portion of their lands in grasses, intending to substitute in 

 part stock-raising for the grain and tobacco previously raised. Flocks 

 were reduced in 1888, many breeders going out of the business entirely. 

 No disease was reported, and in 1890 it was believed that the loss in 



