110 MASSACHUSETTS AGEICULTURE. 



these wools for the purpose of making imitations of Alpacca 

 fabrics is one of tlie causes of the advance, for the enormous 

 demand for such fabrics for foreign countries, with the supply- 

 limited to the growth of the United Kingdom, has rendered this 

 far more scarce than the short wool." 



The raising of this kind of wool involves two other very 

 important points, the production of mutton and lambs, which, 

 at the present time of scarcity of live stock, are of vital impor- 

 tance to the whole community; and it is the combination of 

 these three points, wool, mutton and lambs, which has rendered 

 sheep husbandry so extremely profitable to the English farmer, 

 and has given him the exclusive privilege of furnishing this 

 class of wool for the world, and the English manufacturer the 

 exclusive privilege of producing imitation Alpacca dresses for 

 the ladies of the world. That it can be made equally as remu- 

 nerative in this country we have no doubt, as the testimony of 

 those farmers who have made the trial abundantly proves. 



A member of your committee, who keeps this class of sheep, 

 says that he has received the present year, for his lambs when 

 between three and four months old, $6 each, and the fleeces 

 from his ewes averaged him $3 each. 



Mr. G. Calvin Rice furnishes your committee vnth. the follow- 

 ing account of the produce from his flock of Cotswold and Lei- 

 cesters : Of seven lambs, dropped between the 22d of January 

 and the 8th of ^f^ebruary, 1865, he sold to the butcher, on the 

 15th of May, four for $42.75 ; three he sold for stock for |22 ; 

 five which were dropped later he sold about the middle of July 

 for $24.24 — these were the produce of nine ewes ; he sold 70^ 

 pounds of wool from twelve sheep, at 40 cents per pound, 

 unwashed, $28.20 ; total, $118.19. A pair of lambs from one 

 ewe sold for $17.72 ; the wool sold for $2.30, making a total of 

 $20 from one ewe. 



The breeds of sheep which your committee would recommend 

 for the farmers of Worcester County to keep, and which to them 

 would be the most remunerative, and are best adapted to meet 

 the wants of the country at the present time, are the Lcicesters 

 or Cotswolds and their crosses, the Teeswater or the Lincoln- 

 shires, the Leicester and Southdown crosses. The brighter the 



