AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, 
FOR THE 
ITarm, Garden, and. Honseliold. 
“ AGRICULTURE IS TUE MOST IIEALTIIFUL, MOST USEFUL, AND MOST NOBLE EMPLOYMENT OF MAN.”-W».oi*<it<w. 
ORANGE JUDD, A.M., ) PCJT APT TQTTP'n TTJ" 1 fMO ($1.00 PEE ANNUM, IN ADVANCE. 
EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR. j Jjio 1 ilDJjlioIlXiD 11N lO'JnSi 1 SINGLE NUMBEK, 10 CENTS. 
VOLUME XX-No. 12. NEW-YORK, DECEMBER, 1861. NEW SERIES-No. 179. 
lutr Office at 41 Park-Bow, (Times Buildings). 
Contents, Terms, Ac., on pp. 37 8-355. 
Entered according to act of Congress in the year 1861, 
by Oranqe Judd, in the Clerk’s Office of the District 
Court of the United States for the Southern District of 
Nevv-York. ISPN. B.— Every Journal is invited freely 
to copy any desirable articles, if each article or illustration 
copied, be duly accredited to the American Agriculturist 
Simcrican SlqvtciiUurtft in (Scrtnan. 
The AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST is published in 
both the English and German Languages. Both Editions 
are of the same size, and contain, as nearly as possible, 
the same Articles and Illustrations. The German Edition 
is furnished at the same rates as the English, singly or in 
clubs. A club may be part English, and part German. 
December. 
“ Through all the brute creation, none as sheep 
To lordly man such ample tribute pay. 
For him their udders yield nectareous streams ; 
For him their downy vestures they resign ; 
For him they spread the feast.”— Dyer’s Fleece. 
There must come an end to all beautiful things, 
and this year of abundant harvests and mani¬ 
fold blessings, closes with this month. We see 
around us, on every hand, the evidence that 
Nature is closing another volume of her records 
and settling the accounts. The forests are bare 
and desolate, the fields are sere and dead, if not 
already wrapt in their winding sheet. The 
shortened days, the slanting rays of the noon¬ 
day sun, the frosty nights, the long cold storms, 
proclaim the advent of Winter. “ He giveth 
snow like wool; he scattereth the hoar frost 
like ashes. He casteth forth his ice like mor- 
nels; who can stand before His cold ?” 
The fleecy snow filling the air, and the need 
of woolen garments felt by every one, suggest 
our theme. Whether the English estimate of 
the poet be too high or not, there can be no 
doubt that sheep ought to hold a very promi¬ 
nent place in our husbandry. In England, 
owing to the larger development of the manu¬ 
facturing interest, there is a steadier price for 
wool, and a much higher and more uniform 
price for mutton, and in consequence a much 
greater encouragement to sheep husbandry. It 
is always a paying business, and perhaps justi¬ 
fies the prominence given it by the poet. But 
here, the low price of mutton and the unsteady 
price of wool are great drawbacks to this kind of 
farming. In England, too, there is such a thing 
as law, and lawless dogs with an appetite for 
mutton are summarily disposed of. Here the 
mass of our voters who do not own sheep are 
passionately fond of dogs, and if a law be en¬ 
acted against the canine race, the race of worth¬ 
less cur owners feel that war has been declared 
against them. The curs, biped and quadruped, 
generally carry the day, and the dog law is either 
repealed, or becomes a dead letter so that no¬ 
body dares to enforce it. Sheep become a very 
uncertain article of property. Of necessity, 
they are pastured through the Summer, and are 
generally turned into the remote lots, often upon 
the mountains where the owner can not see them 
daily. Dogs get the taste of mutton, and the flock 
is soon decimated or destroyed. This operates 
so strongly against the keeping of sheep, espec¬ 
ially the more valuable kinds, that the business 
is given up altogether in many parts of the coun¬ 
try. Whole districts once covered with flocks 
of fine wooled sheep, are now stripped of this 
kind of stock. In others it has become inci¬ 
dental to other branches of husbandry, and only 
a few mutton sheep are kept for the home ta¬ 
ble and for the village butcher.—But this state 
of things can not last forever. Americans have 
too much good sense to allow curs and cur 
owners to rule the nation perpetually. 
With an increased home manufacture and a 
steadier price for wool, and suitable protection 
against dogs, this might become one of the most 
flourishing branches of our husbandry. It has 
some advantages over the dairy. The produc¬ 
tion of butter and cheese involves a large amount 
of labor both in the house and in the field. There 
is the daily milking and driving of the cows 
back and forth to pasture, the daily making of 
curds and churning of butter, and the trips to 
market two or three times a week, during the 
Summer. But with sheep, the whole crop of 
grass and hay is turned into a marketable ar¬ 
ticle with very little labor. There is the an¬ 
nual washing and shearing for the wool, and the 
mutton and lambs may generally be sold alive 
in the field. 
We confess to a weakness for sheep, aside 
from our convictions of the economy of keeping 
them as a part of the farm stock. We love to 
see them, to feed them, to handle them, and to 
see the unbounded delight of the children, as 
they hail the young lambs in the field, and in 
the fold. They are convenient pets and good 
educators of the little folks in humane and kind¬ 
ly sentiments, to say nothing of their influence 
in making farm life attractive. There is no more 
beautiful sight upon the farm than a luxuriant 
hill pasture in June, dotted with sheep and 
lambs just before the annual shearing. 
They flourish in all our northern country, and 
are, perhaps, as little liable to disease as any of 
our domestic animals. Their wool forms the 
most suitable article for Winter clothing, and 
ought to enter far more largely into consump¬ 
tion, than it does. We have large faith in wool¬ 
en drawers, stockings, and undershirts, as a pro¬ 
tection against the sudden changes of our weath¬ 
er. Coughs, colds, consumption, and rheuma¬ 
tism, often arise from the want of these under¬ 
garments. Cotton answers a good purpose in 
mild weather, but it is not the material for Win¬ 
ter. This is much better known among labor¬ 
ers in the manufactories, and in the cities, than 
upon the farm. Yet the farmer at his wood 
chopping, teaming, and foddering, is quite as 
much exposed to the weather, and needs the pr< i- 
tection of thick woolen under-clothes. 
Sheep are generally admitted to keep grazing 
land in better condition, than any other stock. 
They are efficient helpers in keeping down brush, 
and will eradicate many kinds of weeds. Their 
appetite craves a greater variety of food than 
the horse or the cow, and even rivals that of 
the goat and the ass. If the brush is once cut, 
and the sheep have access to the tender shoots 
as they come up, they will keep them down. 
Grass will spring up around the brush stumps, 
and the feed will be greatly increased. In a 
bush pasture the land should have all the sheep 
it can carry, until the brush is fairly subdued. 
This should be the rule also in pastures troubled 
with weeds. It is quite possible to bring poor 
pastures into a highly productive state, with no 
other agency than sheep. The land must, of 
course, have some grass upon it to begin with, 
and judgment must be used in the cropping. 
It is of great advantage that their droppings are 
so small, and that they are so evenly distributed 
over the surface. Where the object is to im¬ 
prove the grass, it should not be fed close. It 
will be better for the sheep as well as for the 
land, to have an occasional change of pasture. 
Well fed and thriving sheep, at all events, 
will gradually improve a pasture and bring it 
into great luxuriance without the aid of tillage. 
Too much can hardly be said in favor of mut¬ 
ton as an article of food. It is wholesome and 
palatable at all seasons, and at the farm is 
more conveniently prepared for the table, than 
any other meat except poultry. It does not take 
a very large family to economically dispose of a 
lamb, or fat wether, in the fresh or corned state. 
The cost of producing mutton, even in the 
limited pastures of the older States, we be¬ 
lieve is less than that of any other meat, ex¬ 
cepting poultry. Sheep will thrive in pastures 
where large animals would grow poor, and they 
can be kept at a distance from the house where 
it would be inconvenient to keep cows or oxen. 
