1867. 



NEW ENGLAND FAR^klER. 



265 



DO SHEEP IMPROVE PASTURES P 

 There have been great improvements in the 

 culture of sheep within the last twelve years ; 

 in the texture and quantity of the wool, and 

 in the quality of the flesh. Their numbers 

 Lave gi'eatly increased — to a surprising degree 

 in the West — and even in New England an 

 unusual attention has been paid to them. The 

 increase in 1865 was over four millions. In 

 1860, the number of sheep was estimated at 

 22,471,275, and in 186G, at 32,695,797— a 

 gain of 10,224,522. Those who have en- 

 gaged in their culture^ have found it sufficiently 

 remunerative to encourage them to go on. 

 The introduction of machinery into this coun- 

 try to manufacture delaines, and goods of a 

 similar character, has made a demand for long 

 wools, and especially that of the silky cots- 

 wold, which have been found as profitable as 

 the fine merino wool. On the other hand, the 

 demand for the merino in the great West, in 

 Pennsylvania and Ohio, has been so great as 

 almost to outstrip supply, so that in either of 

 these branches of sheep culture, there is no 

 present prospect of lack of demand. 



Our people are also educating themselves to 

 the use of mutton as food, instead of so much 

 beef and pork. It is admitted, we believe, by 

 all who have given attention to the subject, 

 that mutton is a wholesome and nutritious 

 food. It is certainly easUy and quickly brought 

 to maturity, and, unlike beef, gives an annual 

 return in wool, which pays a portion of the 

 expense of falsing as it goes along. Taking 

 these points into consideration, it is the opin- 

 ion of many persons, that the culture of sheep 

 may be made profitable in most of the towns 

 of Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Con- 

 necticut and New Hampshire. It is already 

 so in the latter State, and in Vermont. 



It is thought by many persons who have had 

 the care of sheep and cattle on the same farm, 

 that where eight or ten head of cattle are kept, 

 six sheep may also be added without additional 

 cost to the owner ; that is, that the manure 

 which they leave on the pastures, and in their 

 pens, and the income from the sale of lambs, 

 will pay the cost of keeping and care, and 

 leave the annual clip of wool and the carcases 

 of the sheep as clear gain. There are some 

 reasons for such an opinion, and granting, for 

 the present, that it is sound, let us see what 

 such a practice would do for our fariliers. We 

 have in New England, as by Commissioner's 



Report, 183,942 farms ; six sheep to a farm 

 would give 1,103,652, which, at .§5.45 per 

 head — the average price in February, 1866 — 

 would give a capital of six millions fourteen 

 thousand, nine hundred and three dollars, and 

 forty cents. If the average clip of wool was 

 three pounds per head, at fifty cents per pound, 

 it would give one million six hundred and fifty- 

 five thousand four hundred and seventy-eight 

 dollars ! A nice sum to be divided annually 

 among the farmers of oui- rough climate an . 

 rocky hills ! 



If the points suggested above are con-ect, 

 or approach correctness, whatever is said or 

 done to discourage the culture of sheep in 

 New England may have an unhappy tendency 

 upon the interests of the farmer. We have 

 been led to these remarks by reading the state- 

 ment of Mr. Matthew Smith, of Middlefield, 

 Mass., as given in the report of the Secretary 

 of the Middlesex Agricultural Society, for 

 1865. The latter adds : "One of your com- 

 mittee said to him that perhaps it would be a 

 good thing to stock some brushy pastures with 

 sheep for the purpose of improving the pas- 

 ture. He answered by fsaying that you and I 

 have heard quite often, the last five years, that 

 sheep would improve pastures ; but don't you 

 believe one word of it, for I have always kept 

 a large flock of sheep, and I know that it is 

 not so." 



We have no doubt but the statements made 

 by ]\Ir. Smith are entirely true, in his case ; but 

 "one swallow does not make a summer," nor 

 does one experiment annul many others, made 

 under different circumstances. We think it is 

 a well ascertained fact, that sheep do generally 

 improve the jyastures upon which they feed. 

 The history of the improvement of sheep, is 

 the history of the improvement of the land 

 upon which they have fed. The history of the 

 South Down is the history of the improvement 

 of the valleys of the Downs. Few pastures 

 exist which afford finer feed for sheep than the 

 famous ''Downs'''' of England, a tract of land 

 about eighty miles long and six wide, which 

 was of chalk formation and nearly worthless. 

 From the hills and valleys of the Downs came 

 the famous South Down sheep. The change 

 wrought upon these Downs by pasturing sheep 

 upon them, enclosing and cultivating them, 

 has been wonderful. Sheep that were previ- 

 ously gaunt and slab-sided, with light and 

 comparatively hairy fleeces, soon yielded the 



