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274 



THE ILLINOIS FARMER. 



sheep were placed at Windsor, nnder the 

 care of Sir Joseph Banks, aad the utmost 

 exertions were made to induce the use of 

 that kind of fine sheep among the farmers of 

 England. To this day, England does not 

 raise a pound of wool out of which you can 

 make a yard of broadcloth that any gentle- 

 man in this house wears. For a long time 

 all her fine wool has come from abroad. 

 After Spain went into the business of dig- 

 ging gold in Sonth America, all her v.'ool 

 was exported to England, there manufac- 

 tured, and sent back to Spain to be sold, 

 and they dug gold to pay for it. The re- 

 sult has been that, while they hare run 

 down, England has rua up. 



I wish to show why that flock of sheep 

 did not sacceed in England, and to show 

 the difference between their condition and 

 oars, to see why fine wools succeed here 

 and cannot there. At tiie same time that 

 that present was made to George the 

 Third, a similar present was made to Louis 

 the Sixteenth. TLe fiock given to the 

 King of France was put on the Ramboailet 

 farm, which was then the royal farm, and is 

 atill, Bonaparte havin;j always kept it. 

 That flock of sheep, bred in, c» I shall here- 

 after mention, in the French merino of the 

 present day. 



At the same time, the same present was 

 made to the Elector of Saxony. The flock 

 which was sent to the Elector of Saxony 

 was attended to, and selected all the time 

 for the finest wool, without regard to size. 

 The French selected with rej-jrd to fize. 

 The Germans belected for fiuoucas of wool 

 merely. The fiock given to tr/j Elector of 

 Saxony is the basis, the orijr'a, the parent- 

 age of all the Saxony wool cf the worlf'i, 

 now to be found a!l over Bavsu'iti, Silesia, 

 Hungary, Rus«ia and this country — a« I 

 shall directly shovr. 



About the latter \rivi of la^i C'Mitr.rv 

 there was introduced into EiiginiiJ iiiut 

 branch of farmin,!^ callfid the turnip 'MiUure, 

 which is the basis of pros})erity to the Eng- 

 lish agriculturist at the present (i:iy. Every- 

 thing in England whieli sustahierl liumiui life, 

 erery thing that the pt^oplo conid eat was 

 very dear, as we all know, until u recent 

 period, since they liave taken off thoir slid- 

 ing scale of duties on wheat, and allowed 

 foreign provisions to be introduce;! for t-.c 

 benetit of maunfactares. I'iie turnip cul- 

 ture was this; they sowed a large fid J, 

 especially on the xiowcs of England, with 

 turnips — generally the Swedish turnips — 

 and then ia the fall of the year they would 

 put upon the turnip fields a flock of their 

 native long wool sheep — the best improved 



breeds of which are the South Downs and 

 the Leicestershires. Those sheep ate the 

 turnips on the ground. There was no ga- 

 thering them — no cutting; them up. Vfhen 

 they exhausted one field they went to an- 

 other, and so on through the winter. The 

 climate being mild, they wintered in the 

 fields on the turnips, and were in a fine con- 

 dition for mutton in the spring. A mutton 

 sheep in England, at that day and now, 

 averages from eighty to one hundred 

 pounds dressed off. The French merinoes, 

 with all the improvements they could give 

 them by breeding in, do not average more 

 than forty pounds dressed off. The mutton 

 of the English sheep would command in the 

 British market, and has all the time for 

 thirty years back, from ten to twelve cents 

 a pound. It is a very superior mutton. 



That is not all. When a piece of land 

 in England had been tilled in the mannsr 1 

 mentioned, and the sheep herded upon it, it 

 would produce twenty-two bushels of wheat 

 to the acre, and that wheat averages from 

 tv/o dollars to tv,'o dollars and fifty cents a. 

 bushel in England tt all times. Bearing 

 these facta m mind, yoa will see how fruit- 

 less was the attempt to introduce into Eng- 

 land these little merinoes, as they have im- 

 proved them, yield but six, and ours from 

 three to three and a half or f«ur pounds. 

 The farmers were told by the nobility, "The 

 King has made me a present of some fine 

 wool sheep, and we want yoa to attend to 

 them, &o as not to be dependent on foreign 

 countries for our supply of fine wool." The 

 farmer saw at once that the wool from these 

 sheep would not bring him more than two 

 shillings sterling a pound for three pounds, 

 v/hile the long wool sheep would shear eight 

 or ten pounds of v/ool , and then the in- 

 (juiry wa3, how much will that little sheep 

 bring for mutton;' Not a cent. You can 

 never make valuable mutton of it. In Ver- 

 mont, v.'bcre we have so many fine wool 

 siicop, car peoi.lo use little or no mutton, 

 tliough we have a little iamb occasionally. 

 I never sav/ any mutton there that compar- 

 ed at all with the Virginia mutton which I 

 s:jc hero. Indeed, I am reminded of an 

 anecdote of an old neighbor of mine who was 

 rather fond of mutton. He u.-:ed to talk 

 about these little merino sheep, and said, 

 "Wiien you got a quarter of it dressed off, 

 you could see the light between the ribs. 

 In good old times, when we bad the large 

 sliecn, a man might go out and steal a 

 sheei), and bring home something for his 

 family to eat, but now, if you bring home, 

 these little merino sheep, you might as well 

 have a tin lantern to eat." [Laughter.] 



