The Massachusetts spy, and Worcester County advertiser. [volume] ([Worcester, Mass.]) 1825-1831, 1829-10-14

petitors only were found willing to contribute
TO the interest of this part of the exhibition,
and these certainly deserve the Communications
OF the society, on account of the spirit they
manifested, and the number of animals they
offered.
To this account of what came under their
notice, the committee cannot forbear adding
remark, before closing their report, upon this
part OF our exhibition this day.
That so few of these animals should have
been offered, in county so favorable to their
production and growth, is matter of regret,
whether it is to be considered as evidence of
the small number owned in the county, or of
want of interest in regard to them, on the part
of the farmers.
If the former be the case, we know not how
to account Tor it, for in no part of this, if any
country, we believe, can there be found finer
pasturage or a finer climate for sheep than
in New England. 1t would only need the re-
turn of the days of classic simplicity, to have
the shepherds pipe heard in our groves, and
the fair and blooming shepherdesses seen tend
ing their f1ocks on our beautiful hill sides.
If the neglect of this species of husbandry
on the part of the farmer, be the cause that
this portion of our exhibition is so SMALL it
should be the object of our association to stim-
tllate him to proper zeal upon the subject 1t
is not necessary for man to convert his whole
farm to the rearing of sheep, in order to be in
terested in their production nor is it necessary
that we should trench upon the province of
another committee in showing the connexion
that exists between the rearing of sheep and
the success OF manufactures, in order to justify
US in urging this topic upon the attention Of
the farmer. They form a part of domestic
economy and should constitute a part of the
establishment of every we'll regulated farm
Not only should they be raised for the purpos-
es of the table for those who love good eating,
but more especially for the purposes of furnish
ing clothing for family. 1t is deceptive
and dangerous economy which induces a far
mer to buy all his woollens of the manufacturer,
merely because he can buy them cheap-cheap-
er even than he supposes he make them at
home. 1t is the same kind of reasoning which
many adopt, even at this day, to prove that we
had better buy our cloths in England, although
they will take nothing, comparatively, of the
people of the north but money, while we have
little to sell for which we can raise money
abroad.
While the farmer is buying at the store
what he could make at home because he can
buy cheap, the members of his family, whose
labor could produce the same articles, are I'M
employed or employed to little no purpose.
This sort of reasoning has banished from too
many houses, the looms and wheels which once
formed such admirable and essential appendages
to almost every farmers establishment. We
are far from denying to every one who can buy
1t, Sunday or holiday suit Of the very finest
of Saxon and Leicester blue, or Slater's black,
as his taste shall dictate, but we do believe
that tor ordinary purposes purely, domestic fab
RIGS are far more economical than the cloths of
eur manufactures.
We would restore the good old days Of house
wfery, when, like the wife of Ulysses of old,
women knew the use of the distaff, and instead
OF waltzes, cantatas, and duets, thrumd out
by boarding school miss upon discordant
piano, the houses Of our farmers rung with the
cheerful sound Of the wheel, the quill aoheeL
and the loom, and offered to the ear Of industry
and thrift, grander trio of music than ever
Handel or Mozart dreamed of. We would
bring back the days when girls knew, at least,
how to spin and knit their own stockings from
the feeces of their fathers focks, and did not
deem it necessary to cover their feet with silk
and prunella, and their heads with Navarinos
as large as good sized sheep pasture.
We may be too late in our recommendations
of reform, much that is the order of the day,
for we should really be apprehensive of the
consequences, if modern cersetted belle should
undertake to spring a loom or throw a shuttle.
The little thing they call a acaist might snap
in the attempt, and with it the web of life,
before the web of the loom had hardly been
begun
oollio nave VeHLureu so lar IN the Specula-
lions in sheep that there is more terror to them
in the very name, than there was to the people
of Jericho in the Rams Horns of their besieg.
ers, and they would go as far as the Orator of
Roanoke himsrlf, out of their way to kick one
But this is an error in judgment on their part.
lfthey cannot keep five hundred, let them keep
as many as they can, and if they cannot sell
their wool at fair profit in market, let them
spin and weave it at home. Fashion governs
in this as well as every thing else, and our
southern brethren, in their crusade against the
tariff, have shown how beautiful in the eye of
fashion, may be the fabrics of the coarsest tex
ture end most grsly colors if she only wills it,
We would have our farmers be and act indie
pendent on this subject and be the founders of
their own fashions. If they will do this, they
may correct the prevalence of the present taste
till it can be no longer said in the words of the
famous Baron Rothschild, "that every body
loves what is deer, and hates what is scheep"
EMORY WASHBURN.
JACOB w. WATSON.
ALPHEUS MERRIFIELD.