340 SHEEP INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES 



portions would give to Jlaiue 2,700,000 sheep, or to each of her 60,000 farmers nearly 

 40 more than they now have. 



Giving the census statistics the credit of making one error offset another, and they 

 show, since 1840, the decrease in the product of wheat to be in exact proportion with 

 the diminution in sheep, showing that there is an intimate relation between the 

 growing of wheat and the keeping of sheep. 



Sheep husbandry then was a necessity to Maine, whether it was to 

 raise wool or mutton. For many years the available fertile elements of 

 the farms had gone to market without au equivalent fertilizing return. 

 Every pound of mutton or wool, every bushel of beans or potatoes, 

 ^every load of hay or straw, had taken away a certain quantity of the 

 phosphates, potash, and nitrogen of the soils, without an adequate 

 return to supply the depletion, until the active element of the soil 

 became so reduced in quantity that satisfactory crops were not grown, 

 or, as commonly expressed, the farm was "run out or worn out." 



As in other States so in Maine, sheep husbandry meant wool growing, 

 but wool growing was profitless, and the time had come to change from 

 that to mutton raising, the time to resort to the growing of mutton as 

 one of the staple productions of the State. It is hard to step aside 

 from beaten paths and adopt new ways, but the pecuniary advantage 

 of the mutton sheep Avas urged. They became a medium whereby the 

 potatoes, barley, turnips, hay, and coarser products could be worked 

 up into a high-priced marketable article, with little risk of prices de- 

 clining below a paying standard. 



There were, however, few farmers and fewer sheep owners in Maine 

 who understood practically the difference between breeds to be kept for 

 wool and breeds to be killed for mutton, or that while "wool growing 

 may be successful in the midst of primitive, almost barbaric, practices 

 in culture, mutton production involves arts of husbandry the most ad- 

 vanced and a knowledge of animal physiology the most enlightened." 

 Which of the mutton breeds werie the best adapted to the climate, the 

 botany, and the system of Maine agriculture was not known, for their 

 comparative merits had not been thoroughly tested by skilled observa- 

 tion. Bach breed had local characteristics and habits, and no one 

 breed was adapted to a wide range of country. Among the advan- 

 tages pointed out for mutton raistug on the sea-coast was the magazine 

 of wealth in the illimitable quantities of inedible fishes there abound- 

 ing, in the residiium of the oil establishments, and the cured chum of 

 the porgy and herring factories. This skilled transmutation from fish 

 to flesh would make the entire State a paradise for mutton sheep. 



The use of fish and fish-scrap as an article of food for. the sheep 

 attracted the attention of the ]Maine board of agriculture as early as 

 18C4, when that board in turn laid the matter before the farmers of 

 the State generally. For many years it had been the custom of the 

 coast breeders to feed their sheep on fish caught in the nets that were 

 not marketable, and they seemed to thrive upon them. TJpon the great 

 increase of the fish-oil industry the utilization of the pomace or refuse 



