Connecticut western news., 1884-07-16
FARM AND GARDEN.
The Advantages of sheep on tho Fla,

 The Advantages of sheep on the Farm.
 Wool is so low in price, with no cer- tain prospect of any material increase, that the keeping of sheep, except under favorable circumstances, will require very close and economical calculations if any profit is to be realized. have not much faith in securing an increase of the duties on foreign wools by revision of the tariff laws and if an increase of the duties should be obtained, it is emiuently proper to consider sheep husbandry upon the basis of small pro- tection and small returns. Sheep fit in so nicely upon the farm that they can hardly be dispensed with. They have an advantage over other stock, inas- much as they may be made to furnish an income twice in the year-first the wool, and then the lambs.
 They may be made to do more than this, and really to afford another in- come in the autumn or winter by the fattening and sale of the old sheep or the surplus stock. After trying all kinds of stock, l have returned to sheep, believing them to be indispensable for a Q complete development of all the re- sources of the farm. There is no stock so well calculated for rugged hillsides or rough pastures, and to prevent the growth of weeds and bushes. Where sheep have the range of field very few weeds will ever go to seed, and bushes will be so thoroughly cropped that they will either die or be kept from making much of a growth. When farmer can thus easily turn the weeds and bushes of farm into excellent manure, and at the same time have them converted into mutton and wool, it is certainly good thing.
 Sheep will always do this. They will thrive in pastures and get fat where cat tie would almost starve. They also scatter their droppings over the field, and never fail to enrich lands where they are kept. On poor farms they are most emphatically the best factors for in. creasing fertility. On rich lands the same rule holds good, as they will make them richer. By the simple means ol a portable shed, which can be moved about the field and under which the sheep will readily congregate, the poor. est spots may be made fertile, and the whole field, by frequent and regular changes of the flock, may be thorough, ly enriched.
 When I was a small boy, my father purchased large farm, which has beer devoted to sheep husbandry for years, He went heavily into debt in the pur chase, and recollect to have heard him say a number of times that the sheeI which had belonged to the former owner paid for the farm. What he meant wa, that they made the farm so productiv, and caused it to yield such bountifu crops, after he became its owner, tha he was thus enabled to make his pay ments. This productiveness lasted fol years, and made the farm famous fol large crops. There are in the older States a great many farms, now rm down with continuous grain culture, which hardly pay the cost of the labo bestowed upon the crops.
 In the keeping of sheep, although tn direct returns from them may not be a great as they have been in former years the advantage to be derived from then in the improvement of the soil shoul, ha taken into account. If, by thes means, better crops can be grown, ther is additional inducement for stockin the farm with sheep. There cannot b any doubt about this result. A numbe of years ago, when large flock of shee was kept on Kirby Homestead, a stri of land the most exposed of any in tn field was well dressed with sheep ma nure. The entire field was sown witl rye and seeded with clover. The DOT tion where the sheep manure was pu produced three times as much rye t, the acre as the rest of the field. Tn clover grew so rank that its very natur, was changed, and instead of dying ou the second year, as it is likely to do, lived for years and made an excellen growth.
 From the facts set forth in this arti cle, and others, I have been led to adc flock of sheep to the stock on tn, farm, with the intention that the farm under my plan, must be made to keel them, and the certainty that they vii be aids in its improvement and mos useful factors in increasing the manure When others go out, it is good time tC go into stock. Certainly this is better policy than to rush with the crowd and make the extremes which unsettle mar. kets, by overproduction at one time and scarcity at another. The whole section of country around me is now loser on account of selling the sheep, and some of the best farmers have resolved to be. gin sheep raising again-this time to stick.-CoL. F. ID. CURTIS, in Rural AT...