1 . 
V^NW. POFVN' 
PRICE SIX CENTS, 
•fi'i.M PER YEAR. 
VOL. XXXI. No. 8. I 
WHOLE No. 130S. f 
■ess. in the year 1S75, by the Rural Publishing Company, in th e offlc o of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.] 
[Entered according to 
with your permission, while correcting his 
undesigned mistake, present your readers 
with a brief sketch of my enterprise in the 
Far West. I am the more induced to do 
this from the growing interest which is now 
being manifested towards the raising and 
improving of stock, and as wool raising es¬ 
pecially is an interest of so vital importance 
to the commerce of ft nation. 1 consider that 
no effort should bo spared towards its im¬ 
provement and extension. 
The plains of Western Kansas, from the 
variety, abundance and highly nutritious 
qualities of its grasses, from the unlimited 
scope of range and freedom from those cli¬ 
matic changes so prejudicial to the success¬ 
ful raising of sheep, present to the stock 
raiser equal facilities to that of any other 
country in the world. I have spent nearly 
two years at Victoria, during which time. I 
have given my undivided attention to exper¬ 
imenting with the various claaoat of sheep 
and cattle, to a careful observation ot tho 
climate, its changes and its suitability for 
sheep fanning, and am now prepared to fur¬ 
nish the most happy results of my experi¬ 
ments. 
At the present time I have 4,000 second 
and third graded Merino ewes, crossed with 
the following breeds of sheep imported from 
tlie first flocks in England, viz. : Oxford 
Downs, Shropshire Downs, CotswoldS, Lln- 
colns and Leicester*. I have never tried a 
cross with the Merino rams, as Mr. Peters 
has been informed. Their produce from the 
Mexican ewes, I have observed, are very 
puny, meager creatures indeed, inheriting 
We ore stating no new thing, we repeat, f 
nevertheless, a very true thing, when we I 
say that the remarkable peculiarity of the I 
o&vset Horns is the production of more and 1 
earlier i»»bs than any other breed. The 
majority of our readers are most probably 
aware that it is the custom ot the Dorsetshire 
flock-owners, after their ewes have produced 
their third lambs, to introduce rams of 
another breed—South Down, Leicester, or 
occasionally Devon—to the off-going ewes, 
which are sold when just beginning to drop 
their lambs, early in October, at Apnleshaw, 
or Woyhill Fair, to purchasers from the Isle 
of Wight orelsewhere, whence the Londoner 
I and the bon vivant of many names mvl many 
places, and of any degree, obtains Ins choice 
I Morsel of early larnb ! The ewe, tea, after 
iischarging her maternal duty, sti\i con- 
t nues to discharge her duty to hersUf and 
U her owner, as England expects she iiould, 
a Ad ia soon rewarded—with the butcher’s 
knife. 
b is clear that a breed of sheep which will 
produce more and earlier lambs than any 
othtr, which cau fatten their lambs wll, 
und lie respectably so soon after—which 
such abundant producer's of good wool, ,f 
Buoh respectable size, so hardy, and 
docile—must and ought to become knowi 
and respected ; and that they are so, is made 
every day more apparent. Gentlemen from 
all parts of England write for a few ewes to 
run in their parks, and to produce early 
lambs for tile house, and the fact, to which 
we have already alluded, that numerous 
admirers of tae Southdown breed have been 
won over to try a horned flock, speaks 
volumes. 
We bring before our friends to-day (see 
illustration) a sample of what we consider 
the best flock of Dorset-horns in the king 
dora. Passed on as they were in excellent 
form from father to son, and bred on a soil 
in every way adapted tc their requirements, 
it Is not surprising that trey should stand up 
well against all comers In the exhibition 
yard. Our opinion, however, is not formed 
from the individuals which appear in public ; 
we look into private life and speak of them 
as a flock which for evennest, symmetry, 
size and purity, certainly cannot be excelled, 
and we may almost be bold enough to assert 
cannot be matched. We believe, moreover, 
that this ia the parent flock of many others 
which are now strong enough to stand with¬ 
out crutches i therefore, if our remarks 
DORSET HORNS 
the Agricultural 
Dorset Horns, says 
Gazette, from which our illustration « copied, 
are now, comparative 1 }" speaking, well- 
known throughout England, for hot oUy at 
the exhibitions of the “ Bath and We* of 
England," but also at the more distant 
gatherings of tbo “ Royal Agricultural 
Society," the breed is well represented, and, 
as a consequence, we seldom bear iu these 
TDorG enlightGuc*! days tho question so oft0.11 | 
asked a few years ago ; " those things with 
horns," as they wore then described, being 
now fully recognised as a very valuable 
breed of slicep. 
Not altogether a peculiarity of one district 
or county are these onco mysterious stran¬ 
gers, although it may be just hinted that 
originally there wr.3 a suspicion of a taint of 
“Devon” blood in some of the excellent 
flocks now to be found iu Somersetshire. 
Without any degree of doubt, however, the 
district in which these sheep abound tn their 
purity and perfection is near the town of 
Bridport, a district which, perhaps, for 
picturesqueues 3 and richness is not to be 
surpassed. On the many curiously-shaped, 
healthy hills and in the fertile and sheltered 
vales of that part of Dorsetshire, these sheep 
thrive and assume such goodly proportions 
as may not be found elsewhere. In the 
neighborhood of Dorchester, too, Mr. Mayo 
and others have done much to get up a 
superior flock, as proved by the reports of 
prize-takers at the principal shows. On the 
colder and less luxurious hills around 
B^aminster. Mr. Pope and some of his neigh¬ 
bors can show flocks which, for purity of 
blood and hardihood, are not to be beaten, 
and which, though they cannot compete 
with “ the garden " flocks in size, are found 
to answer equally welt, and possibly some¬ 
times even better, when taken to other 
