44 SHEEP INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES 



having their right hand cut off. I have one ram which is of good breed in part, has 

 had no better keeping than our ordinary sheep (I was of the mind to see what he 

 would do with mean keeping); notwithstanding his poor keeping two years he is 

 very large and long, has fine wool, and last shearing time afforded a fleece of 6 

 pounds. As the mixture of this breed with onr ordinary sheep successively will run 

 the breed quite out, so putting the same breed together, as they approach nearer 

 the original, the true breed may be recovered. 



In another essay lie discusses the means of fertilizing lands, and 

 adds this testimony to the value of sheep and goats : 



Lambs are for clothing, and goats are for the price of the field. They are excel- 

 lent to subdue rough, uncultivated land. They are in their nature abundantly 

 fitted to serve that useful purpose; they destroy bushes, briars, and weeds. By 

 their tread, their dung and urine, which is very hot, they sweeten the ground to 

 that degree, as in a little time the land will be clothed with grass ; yet that a piece 

 of land subdued by them will thereby be doubled in its value or price, is what, per- 

 haps, hath not been so much thought of as would be proper. 



Household manufactures in Connecticut grew with the increase of 

 sheep, and much advance was made in the linen and woolen trades. 

 "There are many alive at this day" [1748], says Eliot, " who remember 

 since the linen was coarse and what we call tow cloth ; the other cloth 

 for outer garments, linsey-woolsey; and for some time was worn with- 

 out fulling or any kind of dressing; after they began to full cloth, for 

 a time they used neither tentering nor pressing; they only stretched 

 and wound the cloth hard upon a smooth log of wood." 



A striking and touching instance of the most primitive homespun or 

 household manufacture of Connecticut is thus given by Weeden : 



A dozen sheep and one cow comprised the stock, and to her yield of milk the lat- 

 ter added service at the plow. Corn bread, milk, and bean porridge were the staples 

 of the diet. The father being incapacitated by illness, the mother did the work in 

 the house and helped the boys in the fields. Once, in midwinter, one of the boys 

 needed a new suit, and there was neither money nor wool in the house. The mother 

 sheared the half-grown fleece from a sheep and in a week it was made into clothing. 

 The shorn sheep, so generous in such need, was protected by a wrapping made of 

 braided straw. They lived 4 miles from the meeting house, to which the mother and 

 lier two boys walked every Sunday. The boys became Samuel and Eliphalet Nott, 

 one a famous preacher, one the president of Union College. 



At various times, from 1736 until the close of the century, Connecti- 

 cut passed acts for the encouragement of sheep husbandry and the 

 woolen manufactures by granting bounties for cloth made and exempt- 

 ing sheep from taxation and seizure for debt, and under these favnripg 

 acts and the public spirit of her citizens the woolen manufacture was 

 well established and maintained by the flocks that whitened her green 

 hillsides and fertile valleys. 



The "American Husbandry," published in 1776, describes the wool as 

 "long and coarse, and manufactured into a rough kind of cloth, which 

 is the only wear of the province, except the gentry, who wear the finer 

 cloths of Great Britain." 



From some imperfect data concerning the first sheep brought to 

 New England during the early settlements, it is presumable that they 



