164 FINE WOOL SHEEP HUSBANDRY. 
that they must have sheep to carry on that culture 
profitably. Sheep would be more profitable than 
cows on a multitude of the high, thin-soiled dairy 
farms of our State; and every person who has kept 
the two animals ought to know that sheep will enrich 
such lands far more rapidly than cows.* On the 
imperfectly cleared and briery lands of our grazing 
regions, sheep will more than pay for their summer 
keep, for several years, merely in clearing and cleaning 
up the land. They effectually exterminate the black- 
berry (fubus villosus et trovialis), and raspberry 
(Rubus strigosus et occidentalis), the common pests 
in such situations, and they banish or prevent the 
spread of many other troublesome shrubs and weeds.t 
of convenience-—depending upon incidental considerations which this 
is not the place to discuss. 
* Tf milch cows are not returned to their pastures at night in sum- 
mer, or the manure made in the night is not returned to the pastures, 
the difference in the two animals in the particular named in the text 
is still greater. Even grazing cattle kept constantly in the pastures, 
and whose manure is much better than that of dairy cows, are still 
greatly inferior to the sheep in enriching land. The manure of the 
sheep is stronger, better distributed, and distributed in a way that 
admits of little loss. The small round pellets soon work down among 
the roots of the grass, and are in a great measure protected from sun 
and wind. Each pellet has a coat of mucus which still further protects 
it. On taking one of these out of the grass, it will be found the 
moisture is gradually dissolving it on the lower side, directly among 
the roots, while the upper coated surface remains entire. Finally, if 
there are hill-tops, dry knolls, or elevations of any kind in the pasture, 
the sheep almost invariably lie on them nights, thus depositing an 
extra portion of manure on the least fertile part of the land, and 
where the wash of it will be less wasted. The manure of the milch 
cow, apart from its intrinsic inferiority, is deposited in masses which 
give up their best contents to the atmosphere before they are dry 
enough to be beaten to pieces and distributed over the soil. 
+ Tivo years since I hired forty acres of pasture, five or six of which 
