96 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



and this particularly applies to the class of middle and coarse 

 wools, which find a surer and steadier market than fine wools. 

 The prevalence of the pleuro-pneumonia among the cattle of 

 this Commonwealth, has in a very marked manner turned the 

 attention of farmers to sheep raising, as being a safer, as well 

 as more profitable investment. Whether or not this malignant 

 and dangerous disease has by the courage and energy of the 

 Commissioners been extirpated, remains to be determined this 

 winter, but the alarm which it occasioned, and the fear of its 

 recurrence, will not soon be forgotten, and will lead many 

 farmers to stock with sheep rather than cattle. 



Perhaps, however, the most satisfactory reason is to be found 

 in the steady, gradual demand for mutton and lamb in our 

 markets ; this increase has been in a much greater ratio than 

 the population, showing that the people of the country, are 

 coming to appreciate that most excellent of meats. 



At Brighton, on the market day previous to Christmas, 1839, 

 two Franklin County men held four hundred sheep, every one 

 in the market, and yet so ample was that supply, and so inac- 

 tive the demand, that they could not raise the market a half 

 cent a pound, and finally sold with difficulty ; just twenty years 

 after that at the same place, on the market day previous to 

 Cliristmas, 1859, five thousand four hundred sheep changed 

 from the drover to the butclier. 



For the production of a cheap, wholesome, and highly nutri- 

 tious food, no animal excels the sheep ; theoretical consider- 

 ations as well as careful experiment show mutton to be quite 

 equal to beef, and superior to pork or other meat in the produc- 

 tion of vigorous muscle. 



Mutton and lamb are favorite, — if not the favorite food of the 

 English and Scotch of all classes ; notwitlistanding all that has 

 been said or written of the "roast beef of old England," mutton 

 according to the best authority is more eaten by people of every 

 rank. The Scotch laborers arc certainly among the most active, 

 robust, clear-headed, healthy men we see, and they have no 

 meat but mutton. The English, the most robust, and healthy- 

 looking of all people, owe their fine appearance not more to the 

 humidity of tlicir climate, than to the mutton constituting more 

 than one-half of their animal food. On the other hand, it cer- 

 tainly has not been a favorite food in the United States, though 



