by 15 feet wide. All the yards are extended three feet wider than the building, which admits of the two entrance gates at the corners.

Another division then commences, consisting of a raised platform, 6 to 8 feet wide, and extending the same width as the first pen, with a board roof over it, and also boarded up on the back, which answers the purpose of a division fence to separate from the pen behind. Twenty-five feet of yard are also attached to this, and the same arrangement is continued to all the six divisions.

We have found this board roof and wooden floor on the north side of cach pen and fronting the south to be ample protection in cold, wet, or stormy weather. The floor is kept perfectly clean, and even the feeding trough is not on it, on account of more or less of wet and dirt always contiguous to the trough, which freezes in winter and becomes slippery.

Each yard is used for the deposit of refuse vegetables and weeds, litter, &c., thrown in from time to time, to be consumed or converted into manure. This is conveniently loaded into a cart passing along on the outside of each range of pens.

The passage way between each range of pens gives convenient access to the feeder for all the divisions. A door also communicates from one division to the other, to make changes when necessary; and also a door or gate from each pen to the outside, so that one or more can be removed and others introduced without any confusion or interference from any of the other pens. The two pens under the main roof of the building, being more sheltered, are reserved for sows who may happen to farrow very early in the season, or in extreme cold weather, which is always avoided if practicable.

For several reasons, the boiler for cooking food is in a rough shed adjacent to the piggery and entirely outside of it. There is no reason why this should be necessarily a part of the piggery.

The above plan is not offered as embracing much that is novel in arrangement, but as one that combines many advantages

1st. Complete separation, as well as easy communication between each pen, as well as to outside from each.

2d. Avoiding close and confined air, and admitting of extension or alteration for a large or small number of pigs.

3d. Facilities for keeping clean and receiving refuse vegetables and weeds, &c., for conversion into mahure, and also for loading from each pen into a cart passing along outside.

4th. Cheapness. With the exception of the main building, all the rest can easily be erected by an intelligent farm hand.

LONG-WOOL SHEEP.

BY J. R. DODGE, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE.

The supply of fine wool in the manufacturing markets of the world is yearly increasing, and the tendency in price is downwards. The demand for long wool is still unsatisfied, and the movement of prices for all the best styles is decidedly upwards. The English long wools bear quite as high a price as the finest of Australian merinoes, and much higher than those of the Cape and of South America, which have suffered a material decline within the past year.

The increasing manufacture of combing wools, the tendency towards which was noted particularly by the writer in his "Condition and Prospects of Sheep Husbandry in the United States," in the report for 1862, is perhaps the most notable fact concerning the woollen manufacturing industry of the present day. New and beautiful styles of ladies' goods command the admiration and patronage of the fashionable world; and invention is almost equally rife in the production of fancy goods from long wools for gentlemen.

In 1865 the imports of woollen goods into this country amounted to $20,347,563. Of this one-fourth part was for woollen cloths and shawls. The remainder was mostly for long or coarse wools, including dress goods, blankets, carpets, and flannels. The delaines and dress goods far exceed other items, amounting to $7,817,139. This fact significantly illustrates our want of combing wools. In two years the imported dress goods of the United States have cost nearly eighteen millions of dollars in gold, while the same item for the two preceding years did not reach two millions. On the contrary, more cloths and shawls were introduced in 1862 than in 1865.

The wool quotations of commercial papers, wherever examined, test the correctness of these remarks. The following are the prices quoted at the present writing Choice Saxony, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, 674 to 73 cents; Ohio and Virginia, half to full blood merino, 55 to 62 cents; Ohio and Virginia, common to half blood merino, 473 to 57 cents; western merino, 45 to 571⁄2 cents; Canada combing, 70 to 85 cents.

In connexion with these quotations, it is remarked that a change had occurred within the year preceding; that "then fine wool was in demand and the lower grades neglected. Combing wool, however, is in as good demand as it was a year ago, and commands as good a price." An English journal, (the Farmer's Magazine,) in alluding to our want of worsted wools, says "that there is great danger that their" (our) "worsted factories will have to be closed for want of raw material."

The high price of Cotswold wool should not be deemed extravagant, in view of the fact that its shrinkage in scouring is but from 18 to 20 per cent., while the waste in merino wools ranges from 40 to 70 per cent. A pound of average Cotswold fleece will produce as much scoured wool as two and a half pounds of merino fleece which shrinks 68 per cent.

The breeding of long-wool sheep, especially of Cotswolds, Shropshire, and other Downs, is increasing perceptibly in this country, especially in Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan; and the advance in this direc

tion will be still more rapid in the immediate future. The necessity for good mutton is quite as urgent as the want of combing wool, and farmers near the large cities, and many even in the interior, are finding a rich profit in mutton breeds.

A few facts from the correspondence of this department will aid in elucidating the vexed question of the comparative profit of fine and long wool sheep. Aside from speculative operations, the latter, in suitable situations and circumstances, appear to have the advantage in the comparison.

From Cooper Sayre, of Oaks Corner, Ontario county, New York, a statement concerning a flock of fifty Cotswolds, regarded as thorough-bred animals, and the recipients of State fair premiums, places the cost of keeping at $2 per year for ewes and $2 50 for wethers. This includes five months' winter feeding with hay worth ten dollars per ton, and cornstalks, with one bushel of beets per day, costing twenty five cents, and a peck of oats daily for the lambs of the flock. His ewes average seven pounds of clean wool each, and his wethers eleven pounds. The minimum sales of the former are not less than twelve dollars each. His ewes average a yearly increase (of lambs) of 120 per cent. His principal buck weighed, at 18 months, 264 pounds. At the end of the first year he expects a weight of 140 pounds, 200 pounds at two years old, and from 200 to 250 at three years old, and an increase in three months feeding for market of 40 pounds. He estimates the cost of care and labor, exclusive of washing and shearing, at $3 each. It is an interesting fact relative to a flock or this size that the loss is but three per cent.

An interesting exhibit of the debtor and credit sides of a flock of South Downs is made by Ralph H. Avery, of Canastota, Madison county, New York. Taking the average yearly cost and produce of his flock as a basis, he estimates for a flock of ten ewes as follows, with $19 10 each as a comfortable balance:

Leaving a net profit of....

25 00 225 00 5200

555 00

191 00

He writes further as follows: "My sheep are usually sent to pasture about the first of May, and put into winter quarters about the middle of November, making six and one-half months in pasture. During the summer and autumn I aim to prevent them from becoming too fat, which I find a very difficult matter. In this they differ from any other breed which I have kept. My only care during the season at pasture is to put tar upon their noses two or three times

and give a supply of salt once a week. I deem it very essential that sheep have a constant supply of pure running water the year round. When put into winter quarters, which consist of a warm shed open on one side, a tight, warm, and dry stable, always well bedded with straw, and well lighted and ventilated, and an open yard in which there is a trough constantly supplied with water brought from a spring, they having free access at all times to all the different departments, as their instincts lead them. They are regularly fed three times each day upon clover hay, cut when first in bloom and cured mostly in cock, so as to preserve the leaves, color, and flavor as entirely as possible. Occasionally at noon I feed on cornstalks, wheat, oat, or bean straw, for a variety. No grain or roots are fed at any time. I, however, think a few roots, regularly fed, would be beneficial to their health. My sheep, thus kept, are always healthy and in fine condition. I never lose any except by accident.

"After a thorough trial of several breeds of sheep, I consider the South Downs the most profitable for wool and mutton combined, for this section of country. For hardiness, early maturity, and easy fattening qualities, together with the superior quality of their mutton, they are not equalled. In other sections of the country other breeds might be preferred."

The hardiness of the Cotswolds is well illustrated by the fact that they live and thrive as far north as the Ohio river without other food, summer or winter, than the natural grasses of the meadows and forests. It is a common experience in the south, and a well attested fact in Missouri, Kentucky, and Virginia. Anthony Killgore, writing from Stewartstown, Missouri, of his flock near Maysville, Kentucky, says:

"From 1852 (the year I made my first importation) to this date, my sheep have never been fed, either in winter or summer, but live bountifully the year round on blue grass pasture alone. With this treatment I have suffered serious loss from the ewes becoming too fat for breeding and compelling me to consign them to the butcher. I have never owned a common sheep for breeding purposes; nor have I ever handled anything but Cotswolds, except a few Downs, and they only for a short time. All I know of other breeds is from observation in other hands, and from this I have been satisfied to breed the Cotswold sheep exclusively. The South Down is a great favorite with me, and has some advantages over the Cotswold, while laboring, at the same time, under some great disadvantages."

Another of the sheep-breeders of Kentucky writes: "I have not fed my sheep this winter, and they are in fine order. We never feed unless the ground is covered with snow six inches or more."

31

Messrs. S. & S. W. Allen, Vergennes, Vermont, sends the following statement, embracing long and short wool breeds:

It will readily be seen that this flock of merinoes commanded speculative prices. It would scarcely be advisable to stop breeding American merinoes so long as purchasers eagerly demand them at the rate of $100 each for ewes and $50 for lambs. But when both breeds are sold at the same price, and held for wool and mutton alone, what will this comparison show? It is worth noticing, that the amount of corn, oats, roots, salt, and labor is the same, and that the only extra expense of the Leicesters is for half a ton of hay at five dollars, and three dollars more for pasturage; ten merinoes costing, for feed and attendance, $4 90 each, and ten Leicesters $5 75 each-a difference of about fifteen per cent. in favor of the former. To counterbalance this, the wool of the Leicesters yields two dollars more per annum, and their superiority in mutton is equivalent to 45 pounds in three years, or 15 pounds per annum. For the purposes of mutton and wool, then, this showing decidedly favors the ten Leicesters, which produce nearly 150 pounds more of mutton, worth $15, and $2 more in wool, making $17, from which deduct $8 50 for extra cost of keeping, leaving a difference of $8 50 in favor of the Leicesters.

A. L. Graves, Ottumwa, Iowa, with a flock of 160, makes the average cost of feed and care of ten ewes and ten wethers $41 40, and of the same number of cross-bred sheep-South Downs and native-$42 40. The merinoes yield 100 pounds 10 ounces of wool, and the cross-breeds 96 pounds 14 ounces. Thus far the merino has the advantage in point of profit; but the mutton aspects of the case are immensely in favor of the South Down blood. bred attains its growth in two years, two-thirds of it the first year; the merino in three years, one-half the first year, and one-fourth each year of the remaining two years. In addition to earlier maturity, the size is larger and the price

The cross