294 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
Sept, 
cupy that portion of the farm which is least con¬ 
venient for tillage, and thus add an important item 
to the proprietor’s income. This is their great re¬ 
commendation. Without increasing in any sensible 
degree its expenses, and without interfering with 
and hindering its other operations, a limited number 
of sheep can be supported, mainly upon such por¬ 
tions of the farm as would otherwise be neglected 
and for the time valueless. And this has saved our 
flocks from extermination during the low prices of 
wool for the past few years. Having withstood this 
disastrous period so well, it may confidently be ex¬ 
pected that no depression in the wool market can 
ever occur which will have the effect of expelling 
them from this district. When the price of wool is 
low, their numbers will be diminished and more 
ground devoted to agricultural operations ; and 
whenever the production of wool is per se profitable, 
their numbers will be increased, and then also, lands 
valuable for cultivation will be appropriated to their 
maintenance. Thus, wool will always be grown 
here in large quantities, but its amount will be aug¬ 
mented or diminished according to the condition 
and prospects of the market. 
Immediately to the east of us, the condition of 
things is different. Here is a large tract of hilly 
and mountainous land, little of which is capable of 
being profitably cultivated, but which is admirably 
adapted for the pasturage of sheep. These will 
here be kept in large numbers, irrespective of the 
fluctuations of the wool market—it being the only 
thing to which these extensive mountain ranges can 
be advantageously devoted. And the flocks there 
summered, will be brought down for their winter 
keeping, to the plains of this county, particularly 
the low lands towards the Hudson. This is the es- 
tablished management of some flocks at the present 
time—tracts of land in the town of Fort Edward, 
and other tracts twenty or thirty miles distant in 
Vermont, being owned by the same proprietors, the 
latter their pasture, the former their meadow, their 
flocks being annually drove in the autumn to the 
former, and in the spring returned to the latter. 
To no other business can the mountain ranges of 
Vermont probably ever be more profitably appro¬ 
priated, and they will hence settle down into this 
mode of management to a much greater degree than 
at present prevails. 
Hence our anticipations are, that the hilly district 
forming the eastern part of Washington county, 
will ever abound in sheep, deriving their summer 
and winter keeping from the same farm, and that 
the level lands of the west part of the county will 
be devoted largely to the growing of hay, for win¬ 
tering the flocks that will be summered upon the 
Vermont mountains—thus keeping up the same dis¬ 
tinction which exists in Spain, a portion of the 
flocks being Estantes or stationary, and the others 
transhumantes or migratory. 
Influence of keeping on the fineness of 
wool. —On this point it is remarked, that—what 
the fleece gains in weight by high keeping, it par¬ 
tially loses in quality. This is the current opinion; 
though to demonstrate it, requires such a discrimi¬ 
nation of the nice shades of difference that exist in 
fineness as no one among us has the requisite faci¬ 
lities for making. The opinion, however, is so ra¬ 
tional as scarcely to need the evidence of an actual 
demonstration. High keeping cannot add to the 
skin of the sheep an additional number of bulbs or 
glands for secreting woolly fibres; it can only in¬ 
crease the activity of those already existing there, 
thus causing them to elaborate the matter of wool 
more rapidly ; like a sieve or strainer overloaded 
with material, a greater quantity and of a grosser 
quality passes through. Hence, on the best estab¬ 
lished physiological principles, with the fact ascer¬ 
tained that high keeping increases the quantity of 
wool, it will follow that it does so by increasing 
both the diameter and the length of the fibers, but 
not the number of them. If high keeping increased 
only the diameter of the fibers, nothing would be 
gained by it, as the additional weight would then 
be wholly at the expense of the fineness. But it 
adds to their length also, we must believe, in the 
same ratio that it adds to their diameter. High 
keeping, therefore, cannot be regarded as either 
vain or pernicious. The only valid objection to it is 
on the score of economy. 
Expense of keeping sheep. —As we have already 
seen, the annual income from sheep, of the kind of 
which most of our flocks are composed, has of late 
years, been less than one dollar and twenty-five 
cents each. Nay, it is known to be a fact, that 
many of our common flocks in some of these years, 
have brought their owners a return of only seventy 
and eighty cents to each sheep. How this compares 
with the expense of their keeping, we come next to 
examine. 
The current charge for pasturage is from one and 
a half to two cents per week. The first of these 
sums is the lowest for which pasturage is ever hired 
and it is only upon the mountain lands adjoining us 
in Vermont that it can be obtained for that price. 
And the time required in driving and occasionally 
repairing hither to see to the welfare of the flock is 
more than equivalent to an additional half cent. 
Sheep are pastured somewhat more than half the 
year ; say thirty weeks. This at two cents per 
week amounts to sixty cents. When pasturage is 
hired by the season, however, as it sometimes can 
be, the current charge is fifty cents. About the same 
result will be arrived at in another mode of estimat¬ 
ing it. Twenty-five acres of good pasture land is re¬ 
garded as the least that is adequate to sustain a hun¬ 
dred sheep. Such land is sometimes bought for 
twenty-five dollars per acre, though it is currently 
valued at five or ten dollars higher than this. Six 
hundred and twenty-five dollars may, then, purchase 
the requisite amount of pasture land for maintain¬ 
ing one hundred sheep. Thus, without taking into 
the account the cost of keeping up fences, &c., the 
mere interest on the value of the land will be forty- 
three dollars and seventy-five cents, or forty-three 
and three-fourth cents for each sheep. On the 
whole, therefore, fifty cents must be regarded as the 
lowest sum for which a sheep can be kept through 
the summer. 
With respect to wintering. Fourteen tons of good 
hay is the least quantity that any one supposes the 
strictest care can carry a flock of one hundred sheep 
through the winter upon, and more than this is usu¬ 
ally fed. The established price of hay with us, in 
ordinary seasons, is six dollars per ton. This 
amounts, therefore, to eighty-four dollars for the 
flock, or eighty-four cents for each sheep. 
Such, from all the information I can gather, ap¬ 
pears to be a fair estimate of the expense of keep¬ 
ing this species of stock. The estimate is made as 
low as the facts will warrant. In addition to this 
we have a number of minor items very variable in 
amount, according to circumstances, and hence im¬ 
possible to reckon up with any degree of precision, 
such as the time spent in foddering and other neces¬ 
sary attentions, the cost of washing and shearing, 
the value of salt, tobacco, tar, spirits of turpen¬ 
tine and other six-penny-etceteras that are yearly 
required. It is commonly estimated that the in- 
