80 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan. 



from seven to ten dollars a ton, — good sheep hay. I con- 

 tend that such lands could be used in a practical and profit- 

 able way, if a man who understood his business could be 

 placed in care of the sheep. I am acquainted with parts of 

 Berkshire county where the land is good. It formerly kept 

 the owners in affluence. To-day, because of the western 

 fever, etc., the territory is almost depopulated. I know of 

 no reason why people who come to places like Lancaster and 

 Pittsfield should not go a little south and west and make the 

 hills bloom agahi. I do not look on farming with sentiment ; 

 but, where money can be made with sentiment, I say let us 

 do so ; let us improve those old hill towns. 



Mr. Sessions. It is said it will cost too much to fence 

 this land. Now, 160 acres can be fenced witii wire, if you 

 run the wires on the trees, for $160, and for a square mile 

 only twice as much, or fifty cents per acre. 



Question. How many wires ? 



Mr. Sessions, Four wires. 



Question. Will four wires turn dogs? 



Mr. Sessions. I think so ; but another wire is only just 

 a fifth more. At present prices of wire, the material to 

 fence a square mile with four wires would cost $253.50 ; 

 with five wires it would cost $304.20. Provided you can 

 put it on trees, as you can in many places, it will cost but 

 little to string it. Now, the fence problem is wonderfully 

 simplified by barbed wire, and the gentleman who thinks he 

 cannot afford to fence the pasture has not investigated the 

 matter, as it seems to me, especially if he has got any trees 

 where he could hitch the wire. The essayist has had a good 

 many years' experience in keeping a large number of sheep, 

 and I would like to ask him, if he went into anything of this 

 kind, whether it would answer to keep a thousand sheep 

 together. If we should buy up a large piece of land and put 

 shec}) upon it, a thousand or two together, would such a 

 large flock do well together? 



Mr. Avery. I think they would do well ; perhaps not 

 as well as they would in small flocks. I never had more 

 than a hundred in a pasture together. I do not see but 

 they do about as well as where only a small number are 

 together. 



