Sheep husbandry in the South : comprising a treatise on the acclimation of sheep in the southern states, and an account of the different breeds. Also, a complete manual of breeding, summer and winter management, and of the treatment of diseases ...

Front matter

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SHEEP HUSBANDRY

Introduction

geration. Facts subsequently ascertained, have, it cannot be denied, materially changed the impressions of our flock-masters on this subject. Whether correctly or incorrectly, they no longer fear Western competition in growing fine wool. My own coincides with the popular impression on this topic, if we consider that competition in its relations to a period not far distant in the future.

The adoption of these views led me to again turn my attention, never entirely withdrawn, more particularly to the capabilities of the South for this branch of husbandry. My conclusions and the reasons for them will be found in the following Letters. In a letter to Hon. Robert J. Walker, Secretary of the Treasury, published in his Treasury Report of 1845, and in a series of letters published in the Virginia " Valley Farmer," the same year, I stated some of the general conclusions I had then arrived at on this topic. These publications were followed by letters from gentlemen residing in Virginia, North and South Carolina, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas, making farther inquiries, and usually imparting more or less local information on the subject. Some of these were practical men, only seeking information on practical points ; others, eminent for intelligence and legislative experience, embraced a more comprehensive field of investigation, and sought from me, as probably from other sources, to ascertain by a wide range of general facts and statistics, the probable bearing, now and in future, of an extensive system of wool-growing on the Agriculture, Commerce, Manufactures, domestic consumption — in short, the whole domestic economy of our Southern States.

Answers to these questions demanded careful investigation, and involved a great variety and complexity of details in the practical department of the subject, rendered far more numerous by the wide differences existing between the soils, established husbandry, and even the climates, of the three distinct and well-defined zones already alluded to. The location of some of my correspondents was on the mountains of Virginia, the Carolinas, and Tennessee — others on the hilly zone of the same States — others on the Tertiary sands of the tide-water zone, and the Cretaceous plains of the Mississippi and Arkansas. To give opinions on all the topics referred to, and in reference to natural circumstances so various, supported by even a respectable show of corroborating facts, was an undertaking requiring considerable time and labor : to repeat them separately to each correspondent, was wholly out of the question.

Requested by Mr. Skinner, a little more than a year since, to prepare a series of Letters on Sheep Husbandry, and especially on Sheep Husbandry in the South, for The Farmers' Library, it occurred to me that a compliance with his request would enable me to answer each of my correspondents by once writing; and moreover, I could feel, under such circumstances, that I could properly afford to bestow an amount of time and elaboration on my communications which I should otherwise find impracticable. And I confess, I also thought if the information I could impart would prove of value to my personal correspondents, it might also prove so to many others among the numerous readers of a popular agricultural magazine. The liberal offer of the Publishers to provide all such cuts as I should choose to direct, was an additional inducement to adopt this medium of communication. I have often felt the want of these in agricultural letters of my own, and in reading the works of others. In describing a breed of sheep, for example, to a person who has never seen them, the best chosen words convey but a vague impression. In many other cases also, cuts exhibit at a glance what it would require much circumlocution to describe ; and they in many instances convey ideas to the mind with a definiteness, correctness, and exemption from possibility of misunderstanding, which words alone never could. The cuts include portraits of all the breeds which I supposed could of possibility possess, or claim to possess, superior value, for any region or

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10 INTRODUCTION.

locality within the United States ; all the necessary anatomical figures, with those of the less known insect and parasitic enemies of the sheep ; and finally, representations of every implement, fixture, or process employed in Sheep Husbandry, where I thought they would convey important information — and particularly new information — more clearly than it could be done by words. Many of the latterJ class of illustrations have never before been, so far as I am aware, attempted ; and,! representing as they do the results of years of inquiry and experiment, I trust theyj may prove of service to beginners — particularly in regions where Sheep Husbandry! has been hitherto little known.

The Letters were begun and concluded exclusively as a " labor of love." To possess the consciousness that even a limited portion of my fellow-men have been benefited by my labors, would be all, and the noblest recompense to which I could aspire. Nor do I feel, that in attempting to benefit the agriculturists of one section of our country, by urging them to appropriate a branch of industry now giving subsistence to those of another section, I am seeking the good of the former at the expense of the latter. Every region has natural advantages, or those resulting from the natural course of events, for different branches of industry. A right to these advantages enures from a right to the soil ; and the former is just as natural and sacred a right as the latter. To attempt to wrest them from the holder by legislation, is oppressive ; to withhold from him any knowledge necessary to the enjoyment of them, is unfraternal and unmanly. If Virginia can grow wool, or any other staple, more cheaply than New York, let her do it. She will only force New York to fall back on the production of some other staple, or to adopt some other branch of industry. And why not 1 Why should there not be a division of production, where it is called for by natural circumstances, at least within the limits of a common nation ? It is doubtless well for every region, whether extensive or limited, to produce its own necessaries of life to the greatest economical extent. But an attempt to force Nature against her manifest capabilities, for the sake of attainino-a fancied local independence, is to inflict a real evil, in the hope of attaining an imaginary good.

History is full of instances where the prosperity of large masses of individuals, and even whole nations, has been crippled, in futile eftbrts to upbuild this or that branch of industry, in spite of natural obstacles, or against the competition of regions possessing greater natural advantages. Among the foolish, selfish, and even iniquitous legislation of past ages, there has been none perhaps productive of more real mischief to human industry than the intermeddling enactments of governments, ostensibly designed for its benefit. Masses of men, because divided by a rivulet, speaking a different language, or owning the sway of different potentates, have aspired to that physical independence of each other, and of the whole world, which the God of nature rendered economically, if not absolutely impossible. The vexatious restrictions on trade and commerce imposed in pursuit of this object by one government, were met by retaliatory ones by others, until international commercial legislation became a confused labyrinth of enactments — their absurdity only equaled by their mischievousness. And like the elephants formerly used by barbarian nations in battle, they nearly as often trampled down their friends as their enemies. The era of these things is rapidly passing away. That patriotism which includes only a province or State, among one common people, is beginning to be recognised as narrow and sordid : nay, among intelligent men, that philanthropy is beginning to be thought meagre and unexpansive which stops even at the boundaries of Nations.

In preparing the following Letters, I have labored under disadvantages inseparable from the circumstances under which they have been prepared. I have written them from month to month, amid the hurry of other pursuits, with little idea of what

INTRODUCTION. 11

would be their ultimate limits — usually with one or more of the immediately precedino- numbers in the hands of the printer, and consequently not under my inspection. I have not therefore had that opportunity to proportion the space devoted to the several topics, avoid repetition, and correct errors, possessed by him who completes and revises, before any portion of his manuscript is rendered unalterable by stereotyping.

Reliance on insufficient authority has in a very few instances led me into errors, but fortunately, so far as discovered, they have been of trifling importance, and in relation to matters of no especial moment. Those thought worthy of notice have been corrected in subsequent parts of the body of the work. The causes I have named, therefore, affect rather the literary character of the Letters, than their general accuracy.

In stating important facts and conclusions, I have consulted such writers of reputation as were within my reach. Among the foreign ones who have prepared works on Sheep Husbandry, or expressed important opinions on some of its separate topics or facts, or who have alluded to the Sheep Husbandry of particular countries or nations, reference has been had to the following, either by consulting their works, as I have in most instances been able to do — or by quotations from them found in the works of other writers of reputation ; — Anderson, Bakewell, Barnes, Barrow, BischofF, Blacklock, Bourgoing, Bright, Carr, Coventry, Culley, Cunningham, D'Arboval, Darwin, Daubenton, Dick, Ellman, Gasparin, Gilbert, Goese, Harrison, Hogg, Hood, Howitt, Hubbard, Jacob, Lang, Lasteyrie, Leeuwenhoek, Lichstenstein, Linnffius, Low, Luccock, Maitland, Malte-Brun, McCulloch, Moffat, McKenzie, Paget, Parkinson, Parry, Petri, Pictet, Powell, Reaumur, Rodolphi, Sinclair, Slade, Southey, Spallanzani, Spooner, Stephens, Swaine, Trail, Trimmer, Valasnieri, Vanderdonk, Von Thaer, Walz, Western, Willmer & Smith, Youatt, Young, and some others. Of our domestic writers, I have aimed to consult all of the most prominent ones. It is not necessary to enumerate them, extending, as the list would, to hundreds.

The examination of these writers, foreign and domestic, has been no recent undertaking with me. For years, I have found it a source both of instruction and pleasure, to peruse their works. Where they have proposed any thing new to me, which I thought promised favorable results, I have usually sought the first opportunity to put their propositions to the experimentum crucis of actual trial. I have often thus learned valuable flicts. But I have nearly or quite as often ascertained that what may be true of one breed, in one climate, or under one set of circumstances, is not true when all or a part of these conditions are changed. The English and German systems of management, for example, I regard as almost wholly inapplicable here, on account of the entire different relation which the prices of land and labor boai toward each other in those countries and our own. And I sometimes have had the conviction forced upon me, that writers even of reputation have assumed positions in relation to practical matters, which they must have derived from other sources than direct personal experience.

While I have carefully reviewed and collated the opinions of other writers on doubtful practical points, I have in all instances, as will be seen in the following pages, preferred the results of personal experience and observation, to adverse authority, however eminent. Compilations, it seems to me, are sufTiciently abundant, and I have thought it better to give my own opinions, leaving them to stand or fall, as they shall be found accurate or inaccurate. Where I have found it necessary to rely on others for any fact, or have quoted their opinions, I have uniformly given them credit. To my kind correspondents, particularly my Southern correspondents —many of whose communications are not published on account of their reluctance

12 INTRODUCTION.

to be cited as authority for facts, where their modesty leads them to underrate their own comparative knowledge and experience — I tender my thanks for their assistance.

I have addressed the Letters to Col. R. F. W. Allston, of Waccamaco Beach, near Georgetown, South Carolina — a gentleman to whom I am indebted for muchJ valuable information on the subject of Southern Agriculture, and who has ever] evinced a most earnest desire to contribute to the improvement of that Agriculture.

HENRY S. RANDALL.

Cortland Village, N. Y., April 3, 1848.

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