144 BOARD OF AGEICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



enouo-h of them would have lambs to offset the losses of the 

 weak and aged animals during the winter ; and under such 

 circumstances some ewes twelve or thirteen years of age 

 would still produce lambs. At the sheep slaughter house in 

 Somerville a wether died recently which was known to be more 

 than twenty years of age, and had been used as a " decoy " 

 in leading the lambs to the shambles for nearly the whole of 

 that period ; but it is generally considered that ewes cease to 

 be thrifty in New England at five or six years of age, and 

 can then be turned into mutton at a profit. 



One of the largest sheep butchers in New England in- 

 formed me the other day that there never are any fall lambs 

 in the eastern States which are fit for the Boston market ex- 

 cepting a few in Aroostook County, Me., in the neighbor- 

 hood of St. Johnsbury, Vt., and around Colebrook, N. H. 

 His idea is that all the good lambs for the Boston market, 

 except a few from the three little sections named, come from 

 the British provinces. He argued that there are no pastures 

 and no form of green feed in all New England that will 

 make lambs fat without the use of grain ; but when the argu- 

 ment of any of these skeptics regarding the possibility of 

 successful sheep husbandry in New England is carefully 

 analyzed in detail, it is found to be inconclusive. If it is 

 argued that sheep cannot possibly be kept here, because of 

 dogs, the answer is that the dogs may be kept out by proper 

 fencing. If it is claimed that the fence is too costly, the 

 reply is that the fence is no more costly here than elsewhere. 

 If it is urged that the pastures are too poor, the answer is 

 that the sheep will improve them ; and if it is insisted that 

 the lands are old, the reply is that the prices of land in New 

 England are far cheaper than in the farm sections of the 

 west. 



The year 1840 was the first time when sheep were enu- 

 merated in the United States census, and the total for the 

 whole nation was 19,311,000. For twenty years after that 

 period there was little increase in the country as a whole. 

 In 1850 the number given was 21,773,000, and in 1860 only 

 22,471,275. During the war and for a few years thereafter 

 a very rapid advance was made, from about 22,000,000 

 to possibly 42,000,000, followed by a decline in the years 



