SHEEP. 213 



will bring up an average of fifteen lambs to ten sheep. Large, 

 early lambs, well started, and allowed a pint of meal daily for 

 the last two months, will readily fiiid a maricet here in May and 

 June at five dollars per head. Tlie care and trouble of such a 

 flock bears no proportion to that attendant on a flock of fine- 

 wooUed sheep. The larger breeds are not only more prolific 

 but hardier, and on account of their size, less liable to be 

 worried by dogs, less liable to disease, not so apt to ramble, and 

 bringing quicker returns, are more profitable to small farmers. 

 The middle-wools, when six years old, are capable of being 

 made into superb mutton from their great aptitude to take on 

 fat, and carcasses averaging one hundred and ten to one 

 hundred and twenty pounds, at ten cents per pound, and a 

 dollar for the pelt, making twelve dollars or thirteen dollars, 

 show a handsome profit on the cost of raising and fattening. 

 Of the various breeds probably the South Downs are at present 

 the greatest favorites." 



The committee of the Plymouth County Agricultural Society, 

 on sheep, say : " We would recommend for every farmer, how- 

 ever limited his number of acres, to keep a few sheep." A writer 

 in the " Country Gentlemen," the last year, says : " I bought 

 three ewes, two years ago this spring. Two of them had four 

 ewe lambs, and last year, six of them had eight ewe lambs, 

 making in all fifteen ewes. I paid fourteen dollars for the first 

 purchase, and the wool has about paid the keep, and I have just 

 received seventy-five dollars for the flock." 



The above remarks are as applicable to the farmers in 

 Middlesex as to those in any other county in the State. 



But the keeping of sheep is profitable not only from the 

 product of wool and mutton, but from the tendency which their 

 keeping has to improve and enrich the land for all agricultural 

 purposes. There is no manure dropped by animals upon the 

 land so fertilizing as that of sheep, and none so evenly distrib- 

 uted, or which suffers so little from waste. A distinguished 

 German writer has calculated that the droppings of a thousand 

 sheep during a single night would manure an acre sufficiently 

 for any crop. By using a portable fence and moving it from 

 time to time, a farmer might manure a distant field with sheep, 

 at less expense than that of carting and spreading manure. By 

 a little pains, a large quantity of excellent manure may be made 



