44 



market and high prices, and such, they think, is the South Down 

 crossed with the Leicester of the Bakewell stock or the Pauler 

 Merino, which has been proved, by experience, to make the best 

 breeders and best mutton, and their wool is just what is wanted 

 by the manufacturers, being of a medium quahty, and shears from 

 four to six lbs. of clear wash wool, and brings about as high a price 

 as the finer wool. 



In Newport, Middletown, Portsmouth and on Rhode Island, 

 the butchers engage the sheep in April and May for the season, 

 and take them in July, August and September, as their custom- 

 ers want them, at fixed prices. The Chairman of the Committee 

 spends some time every jea.Y at Newport and Portsmouth, and 

 always takes great pleasure in viewing their flocks, and he finds 

 that for the last year they have increased their flocks largely and 

 made large profits. He will here state, what he had from good 

 authority ; a farmer that has had much experience in farming, 

 and had been very observing in his experiments, — he has a small 

 farm of about seventy acres. When he keeps all neat cattle, he 

 has eight cows, one heavy yoke of oxen and a horse. If he keeps 

 sheep in part, he keeps four cows, one yoke of oxen, horse, and 

 forty to forty-five sheep, and he says he gets more profit from his 

 sheep than from all the other stock, and with much less labor. 

 The present year he has kept four cows, oxen and horse, and 

 forty-two ewe sheep ; he has raised from his forty-two sheep, fifty- 

 eight lambs, and sold his poorest lambs to the butchers at five 

 dollars a head, reserving his best ewes for breeders. A neighbor, 

 whose farm joins his, keeps more cows and less sheep ; he has the 

 present year twenty-two ewes, and they had forty-four lambs, and 

 I think he raised them all ; twenty of his sheep had twins, one 

 had one, and the other, to make up even number, had three ; he 

 sold his lambs at six dollars per head to the butcher ; his fleeces 

 weighed clean five lbs. each. The sheep were a cross from South 

 Down, the Bakewell or Pauler Merinoes, and such are the most 

 of the sheep kept on Rhode Island. 



Thomas Hazard, Esq., of Portsmouth, R. I., has been long en- 

 gaged in sheep husbandry, and kept a memorandum book of his 

 stock, especially of sheep, and has had more experience in farm- 

 ing than any other man that I am acquainted with. He says at 

 this time, after his large experience in farming, he considers 

 sheep much the most profitable stock kept, and would recommend 

 the large Pauler Merino to be crossed with the South Down. Mr. 

 Hazard, as Chairman of the Committee on Sheep, at Middletown, 

 has written a very able report on sheep, and goes into the origin 

 of all grades that have been imported. 



The Committee submit the following statement from Thomas 

 Motley, Esq., of West Roxbury, who says, — " I send you a 



