138 Essay on Sheep. 



he will more readily purchase a ram at one 

 hundred and fifty dollars, than he would have 

 bought him atone hundred, if he could only sell 

 his lambs at two dollars. One ram will bring him 

 fifty lambs; this, at twelve dollars, is six hun-- 

 dred dollars: with a ram at ten dollars he could 

 have fifty lambs, worth two dollars, which is 

 one hundred dollars; deduct the price of the 

 ram, and in one case he gains ninety, and in 

 the other four hundred and fifty dollars the first 

 year; the second year he gains in the one case 

 one hundred, and in the other six hundred 

 dollars, the expense of keeping being the 

 same in both stocks. It was not till the price 

 of rams rose very high that any important im- 

 provement was made in British sheep, and this 

 is precisely the case in this State. All the full- 

 bred rams of tlie Clermont stock were bespoke 

 before the first of January, at one hundred and 

 fifty dollars; and one thousand dollars has been 

 refused for the ram Itimb of ten months old that 

 I have before mentioned, and two hundred for 

 his brother, dropped at Christmas, and only 

 three weeks old when the ofter was made by 

 an cnliq-htened finniier of Massachusetts. What 

 is all farming but an adv^ance made with a view 

 to future prolitr No man refuses to sow wheat 

 because the seed is dearer than rye. A rich 



