FINE WOOL SHEEP HUSBANDRY. 163 
tation, give the cultivator of our New York lands 
advantages over the cultivator of remote and cheap 
ones, which tend in a considerable degree to equalize 
their profits. Were this otherwise, what help is there 
for us? Can we let our costly lands lie idle because 
there are cheaper ones in the West and South? The 
only question with us is, what staples we can grow 
most profitably. 
Besides, on our grain-growing soils, at least, sheep 
are an absolute necessity of good farming. The 
growing of wheat, clover-seed, &c., cannot be carried 
on economically and systematically without some de- 
pasturing and manure-producing animal. For both 
of these purposes, the sheep is a vastly more profita- 
ble animal than any other. Mr. Johnson, of Geneva, 
and Gen. Harmon, of Wheatland, two as good wheat 
farmers as there are in the State, have thrown a flood 
of light on this subject by their experiments and 
their writings.* Leading clover-seed raisers assure me 
* Since the above was written, I have received a letter from Mr. 
Johuson on the subject. He says that “sheep and wheat farming 
ought to go hand-in-hand in this country,” that what “he has made in 
the last forty years has been in a large proportion by sheep.” He has 
“ fed (fatted) sheep in winter for over thirty years, and with the ex- 
ception of 1841~42 they have always paid the cost of feeding, and 
some years left a handsome profit.” That is to say, for every year but 
one, during that period, he has converted the hay, grain, &c., of his 
farm into manure on the farm, and got back the full price of those 
products and costof feeding; and in some years he has done better 
than this. ‘Ilis profits have been better since 1840, when he com- 
menced wintering on straw and oil-cake or grain. After 1846 he kept 
no regular flock, but bought them in the fall and sold them usually in 
March or April. In some instances he held them until after shearing, 
but found that he seldom did as well as by selling earlier.” 
Gen. Harmon, and I think a majority of wheat farmers who have 
sheep, prefer keeping a permanent breeding flock. This is a question 
