FRANKLIN SOCIETY. 297 



fully responded, that he presumed his friend who preceded him 

 meant to encourage the cultivation of very large blades of 

 grass. Your committee will not undertake to judge of the 

 correctness of this philosophy when applied to grass, but they 

 would be ready to maintain that one animal may often be 

 made to grow where two grew before, to the great advantage 

 of the farmer, and particularly so to those who are directing 

 their attention to the raising of sheep. 



There was a fme illustration of the above principle in the 

 exhibition of sheep, which, though few in number, were of a 

 very superior quality ; each in their different variety speaking 

 well of the husbandry of their owners. No. 1 was a lot of 

 South Down Ewes, owned by Samuel Fisk, of Shelburne, (who 

 seems to be a sort of Jacob, of Scriptural notoriety, in every 

 thing he turns his hand to,) three-fourths blooded, six in num- 

 ber, each of which had brought up a pair of lambs the past 

 summer, and weighed as follows, viz. : two of them 134 lbs. 

 each, one 140 lbs., one 154 lbs., and two of them 164 lbs. each. 

 The lambs were sold the past season, at four months old, for 

 §6 40 a pair; add to this 3i lbs. wool, at 34c. per lb., $1 19, 

 makes the product to each ewe $7 59 per annum. 



It appears by a written statement of this modern Jacob, 

 handed your committee, that the six ewes exhibited have raised 

 in the three last years 36 lambs, w4iich have been sold when 

 4 months old for the sum of $110 40; to which add $21 42, 

 the value of the wool, makes $131 82, as the income from 

 six ewes for three consecutive years, or $21 97 to each. 



A few years since wool was one of the staple productions of 

 Franklin county, but the free pasturage of the western prairies, 

 speckled over wuth vast flocks of sheep, the wool from wdiich 

 can be transported hither for a penny a pound, has w^ell nigh 

 driven the fine wooled sheep from our mountain farms. But 

 while this has been going on, the increased population of our 

 manufacturing villages and the growth of our cities has opened 

 a market for mutton and lambs, for the supply of which our 

 nearness to market gives us advantages against which no 

 western farmer can compete. 



During the past winter a farmer of Conway has sold a pair 

 of sheep in the Boston market, for mutton, for one hundred 

 dollars. 



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