72 ESSEX SOCIETY. 



county to go largely into wool-growing, and yet if it should 

 clearly follow, from this humble effort, that something further 

 should be attempted in the matter of keeping sheep, by a 

 moderate expenditure, annually increased for a few years, until 

 the experiment should be fairly tried, it will not surely be cause 

 of regret. 



Various causes concur, to make it difficult to suggest any 

 rule, which will apply to all parts of even the county of Essex. 

 Land in the neighborhood of market towns is too valuable for 

 keeping sheep. This is well understood by farmers. Even in 

 Amesbury, although there were twenty-seven sets of woolen 

 machinery in that town in 1837, there were but four hundred 

 and ninety-eight sheep kept, for the reason, no doubt, that the 

 milk of the cow at Newburyport market, would pay better. 

 The town of Beverly had but one hundred sheep in 1837, 

 being within a mile of Salem, and Danvers only fifty, while 

 Boxford had four hundred and eighty-four. 



And again, some kinds of sheep require more expensive 

 keeping than others do. So, also, much depends upon the 

 leading object for which sheep are intended to be kept — 

 whether for the wool or the carcass — and again, whether for 

 fine or for coarse wool. 



It will be safe, in general, however, to lay down the broad 

 principle, that Essex county is not the place for extensive wool- 

 growing. Mr. Jewett, an American wool-grower, has recently 

 imported French sheep, which shear twenty-one pounds each, 

 at an outlay of some $30,000, but that is in Northern Ver- 

 mont, and there, sheep may be pastured at two to three shil^ 

 lings each, while ninety cents each is as low as it can be done 

 for in our county. 



Still, when it is recollected that in 1845 there were sixteen 

 woolen mills in this county, with one hundred and three sets 

 of machinery, working up two million two huildred and ninety- 

 two thousand five hundred pounds of wool annually, and that 

 there should have actually been but fifteen thousand six hun- 

 dred and thirty-eight pounds of wool grown, we are struck with 

 the fact, that contiguity to the market is not always sufficient 

 to produce the supply for that market. And although a " free 

 trade" interchange of products is sometimes the best of 

 economy, yet there is a favorite theory lingering in most New 



