45 



planting for some time. The crop was hoed and cultivated twice, and the corn 

 showed a large growth. He planted twelve-rowed Button com, three feet apart, 

 four or five stalks to the hill, and husked two hundred bushels to the acre for half 

 the piece, the balance a little less. Saw no marked difference between that ma- 

 nured in the fall from that in the spring. 



F. K. Hinckley, of Lee, thought if a farmer hasn't any corn he hasn't any- 

 thing, and he might as well be on a farm without a wife as without a crib of corn. 

 He had tried both, and he knew. Corn wants good laud to begin with and then 

 wants feeding as it grows. Twenty or thirty loads of manure to the acre, plowed 

 under, wiU give nourishment to corn when the ears begin to set, for the roots 

 will just about reach it by that time. If properly cured it will make fodder equal 

 to the grass crop, 



Henry W. Sheldon, of New Marlboro, said he found best results from spread- 

 ing on manure instead of plowing it under. 



Leonard Tuttle said he had practiced plowing it under, but if taken from the 

 stable he harrowed it in. If plowed he used a Michigan double-mold-board plow, 

 and in that way worked it four inches under and got much better results. 



Mr. Mackie asked which is the best kind of corn to raise in the Berkshire 

 valley, to which Mr. Kline replied that the best kind found by the committee on 

 Fall Crops was the twelve-rowed Button. Mr. Hinckley had' tried four kinds last 

 year and found the twelve-rowed Button far superior, rii:)er and harder. The 

 Early Compton was good, but not as good. 



Mr. Fitch had found the latter kind to yield one hundred and forty-six bush- 

 els of ears to the acre, not a large yield, but the fodder was trem^^^-ndous. Mr. 

 Bullard, of Lee, thought this might be owing to the warm laud of Mr. Fitch, as 

 last year was a wet season. 



The next subject for discussion was then taken up :— " SHEEP HUSBANB- 

 KY." Theron L. Foote of Lee read the following paper : 



"The history of Sheep Husbandry goes back to the earliest history of man. 

 In fact the first man started his second son in the sheep business, and made Abel 

 a "keeper of sheep." From that day until the present, in everj^ countrj' and 

 clime, wherever man rules, this valuable animal is found, ministering to his wants, 

 and furnishing him both food and raiment. 



The most timid and dependent of our domestic animals upon us for protec- 

 tion, history proves that in ancient as well as modern times the keeping of sheep 

 has been attended with much care. We read that when Jacob went on that fa- 

 mous courting expedition to Padanaram, that "Rachel came with her father's 

 sheep, for she kept them." Moses "kept the flocks of Jetliro his father-in-law." 

 Bavid was a keeper of sheep, and Job had fourteen thousand. After the Chris- 

 tian era the sacred writers chose them as symbols of purity and gentleness. 

 Then, as now, undoubtedly the dogs and wild animals preyed uj^on them and if 

 not for the protection given them by man they would long ere this have been 

 swept from the face of the eai'th. 



There are said to be about forty varieties of sheep. Johnson in his Natural 

 History quotes from a writer oh this suV)ject who says : "With the exception of 

 the dog, there is no one of the brute creation which exhibits the diversity of size, 

 color, form, covering and general appearance, which characterizes the sheep, 

 and none which occupies a wider range of climate, or subsists on a greater varie- 

 ty of food. In every latitude between the equator and the arctic, he ranges over 

 the sterile mountain, and through the fertile valleys. He feeds on almost everj' 

 species of edible forage, the cultivated grasses, clovers, cereals, and roots ; he 

 browses on aromatic- and bitter herbs ; he crops the leaves and bark from the 

 stunted forest shrubs, and the pungent, resinous evergreens. In some parts of 

 Norway and Sweden, when other resources fail, he subsists on fish or flesh during 

 their long and rigorous winters, and, if reduced to necessity, he eats his own 

 wool. He is diminutive like the Orkney, or massive like the Teeswater. He is 

 pohcerate or many-horned : he has two large or small spiral horns like the Meri- 

 no, or is polled or hornless hke the mutton slieeij. He has a long tail like our 

 own breeds, a broad tail like many of the eastern, or a mere button of a 

 tail, like .the fat-rumps, discernible only by the touch. His coat is sometimes 



