ADVANTAGES OF SH^KP HUSBANDET. 97 



^h, thin -soiled dairy farms of New York; and every 

 rson who has kept the two animala ought to know that 

 eep will enrich such lands far more rapidly than cows, On 

 e imperfectly cleared, and briery lands of our grazing 

 gions, sheep wUl more than pay for their summer keep,, for 

 ireral years, merely in clearing and cleaning up the land, 

 ley effectually extermjjiate the blackberry ^iubtcs villoaus 

 trivialis,) and raspberry (JRulms strigoms et occidentalism 

 e common pests in such situations, and they banish or 

 event the spread of many other • troublesome shrubs and 

 ;eds. They a,lso, unlike, any other of our valuable domestic 

 imals, exert a direct and observable influence in banishing 

 arse, wild, poor grasses from their pastures and bringing 

 the sweeter and more nutritious ones." It was a proverb 

 the Spaniards : — " Wlierever the foot of the sheep touches, 

 B land is turned into gold." 



"And the growth of wool is peculiarly adapted to , the 

 cuniary means and the circumstances of a portion of our 

 ral population. Their capital is, mostly in land. Hired 

 )or is costly. Sheep husbandry wUl render aU their cleared 

 id profitably productive at a less annual expenditure for 

 5or than any other branch of farming. By reason of the 

 pid increase of sheep, and the great facility of promptly 

 proving inferior ones, they wiU stock a faria well, more 

 peditiously, and with far less outlays than other animals, 

 id, lastly, the Ordinary processes and manipulations of 

 eep husbandry are simple and readily acquired. On no 

 ber domestic animal is the hazard of loss by death so small, 

 is as healthy and hardy as other animals, and unlike all the 

 tiers, if decently managed, a good sheep can never die in 

 e debt of man. K it dies at birth, it has consumed nothing, 

 it dies the first winter, its wool will pay for its consumption 



I to that period. If it lives to be sheared once, it briags its 

 i^ner into debt to it, and if the- ordinary and natural course 



wool production and breeding goes on, that indebtedness 



II increase uniformly and with accelerating rapidity until 

 e day of its death. If the horse or the steer die at three 



four years old, or the cow before breeding, the loss is 

 nost a total one." 



The cost of producing wool depends upon that of keeping 

 eep, and this necessarily varies greatly in different 

 nations. On the highest priced lands in New York and 

 BW England on which sheep are now usually kept for wool 

 owing purposes, it, under judicious systems of winter 

 6 



