The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-12-19
CONNECTICUT AND SHEEP RAISING

the Farmer's Convention, December 18th.
 If I were addressing aN audience of farmers of Connecticut who are not more tions of this kind or addressing the general assembly of Connecticut I should at length attempt to show the advantages of keeping sheep on our farms. I should try and show them the advantage to the state at large from the improvement of thousands of acres of land, much of which is now lying idle and constituting the vast major- ity of land chased under the head of abandoned farms.
 l should try and explain to such an audience the advantages of producing at home lamb and mutton for our home markets, advantage to the producer and advantage to the consumer, who would be enabled to purchase the most toothsome and wholesome meat fresh from neighboring hills in condition fit for food.
 l should try even to instill into the iIlllluo ul SuGLi dll ctultlGliCC llC luCelS l that prevailed when this was a young nation, that it was well in such an l article as wool to be practically inde- pendent, so that in case of war we | might at least keep warm.
 l All arguments on these lines would 1 be out of place here, for you attend | farmers conventions, read agricultural i papers and know these things as well as I do
 In newly settled countries when wolves prey upon focks it has been, I think, the universal custom in all countries and all states of our country
 to offer bounty for the destruction of
 the predatory beasts.
 We are unfortunate in that our tiocks are subject to destruction by animals
 that we are barred from offering bounty for killing because they are not wild animals, but belong to our neigh l bors, and our neighbors care as little | for our property, for our right to keep sheep on our farms, if we are so dis posed, as the 'hungriest pack of wolves l that ever howled at night around a | frontier settlement.
 1 When I say neighbor I am not speak 1 ing of our city, borough or village
 friends, but our brother farmers in
 the milk, butter or tobacco business. l Our town neighbor usually owns the
 dog that kills our sheep, but it is a
 nearer neighbor that, as an elector or
 a member of the general assembly, pre- vents the passage of laws for our pro- lection.
 1 It would seem as though my neigh
 Dor, a butter maker, would see that
 his advantage lies iii my keeping a
 flock of sheep instead of making butter to sell in competition with him in our home market, but he does not, or if l he does it does not weigh in the bal ance with keeping a worthless dog and allowing him, the dog I mean, to go
 where he pleases, when he pleases, and
 do what he pleases. {, l It is to me a humiliating fact that, put on your program as the president
 of the Connecticut Sheep Breeders as- sociation, am not the owner of a sOli- tary sheep.
 The town of Oxford still owes me for a portion of a flock that l had been years in growing up so that l took
 some little pride in it.
 1 shall never keep another sheep until the laws of our state offer me better protection. nor until the loss falls uni formly upon the dog-keeping people of the state and not upon my own towns lpeople.
 You may think this queer talk for the president of an association chartered I1-o, ant nf
 sheep breeding but it is idle to mince
 matters. Sheep breeding will not ad-
 vance in this state until there is better protection from domestic wolves and this protection will not come until the farmers of Connecticut say it must. I do not propose to criticise any one,
 but I must drop into history little.
 In 1893 a committee appointed by a farmers convention proposed bill that was presented to the general assembly, received a favorable report from the committee on agriculture, was opposed in a joking way by a city lawyer that the constitution would prevent, thank lheaven, from ever being president of this country and that knows as little of the agricultural interests of this 1 COullIlY as uO dUOttI LilG A. A. llle |
 the papers talk about, and defeated, IScarcely a farmer said word in favor
 of the bill and undoubtedly most of
 them voted against it.
 In 1895 a committee appointed by the last farmers convention met with the Iofiicers of the Connecticut Sheep Breed CTS association and in order to get something several bills were prepared.
 We appeared before the committee on agriculture, met the dog men, explain
 ed the bills and apparently there was
 no opposition on the part of any one
 to their passage.
 There was a proposition for a suhsti-
 ute bill as to the taxation of dogs, and
 as the committee seemed t5 approve Of
 the ideas advanced and the farmers and
 the Cog msn agreed. q substitute was tprepared and handed to the committee. That substitute bill never reached eith- CT house, but the others, having been