Sheep husbandry; with an account of different breeds, and general directions in regard to summer and winter management, breeding and the treatment of diseases. With portraits and other engravings

Front matter

SHEEP HUSBANDRY;

WITH

AN ACCOUNT OF THE DIFFERENT BREEDS,

Preface

in large quantities from abroad, because it is of a kind we cannot produce in England : our colonies on the continent of North America, South of New York, produce a wool entirely similar to the Spanish. No staple they could produce would, therefore, be more advantageous to Great Britain. It is well known that a piece of fine broadcloth cannot be made without Spanish wool ; it is also known that the Spaniards have of late years made great efforts to work up their own wool ; if they should succeed, or if they should by any other means prevent the export of it, our woollen fabrics, though they might not be stopped, would at least be burdened with a fresh expense and a new trouble ; all which would be prevented by encouraging the import of wool from America : and at the same time that this good effect was wrought, another would be brought about, in cramping the manufactures of the colonies.^'

Unfortunately for the agricultural interest of our country particularly, the desire to " cramp the manufactures of the colonies," here so candidly avowed as the settled policy of England, not only survived the Revolution, but has been so well fostered by our own subserviency to it, as to render our independence, in respect of this and other no less important industrial pursuits, rather nominal and fictitious than substantial and true ; nevertheless, with the odds of pauper labor and immense capital against us, thariksfto the ingenuity and enterprise of our people, we need not despair of final success with any thing like fair consideration on the part of our own government. For this opinion we need have no better authority than that of Samuel Lawrence, the enlightened and liberal proprietor of the Middlesex Mills, at Lowell, who says, " the business of ^ manufacturing wool in this country is on a better basis than ever before, inasmuch as the character, skill, and capital engaged in it are such as to defy foreign competition." Occasional revulsions, such a# the present, will occur from causes abroad over which we have no control, but let not the wool grower relax in the care of his flock, for the same far-seeing manufacturer has declared that he could point to articles of wool now imported, that will require thirty millions of pounds of medium and fine quality to supply the demand.

After all, then, on viewing the importance of the inquiry to numerous friends for whose welfare we profess to entertain unaffected concern, and the great extent of the district which seemed to us to be so well adapted to the growth of sheep and wool — the magnitude of the interests involved swelled upon the contemplation, begetting a conviction that as a question of practical agriculture, it was not to be worthily and well treated by a few hasty and superficial essays, or by more elaborate compilations in relation to the oft-repeated natural history of the animal, its prominence in scriptural annals, &c., unsustained by that

6 PREFACE.

laborious and discriminating comparison of facts and authorities to illustrate its uses and its value, and by that fulness of personal experience in the breeding and management of the various races, " in sickness and in health," •which constitute the excellence of these letters to Col. Allston.

Under all these circumstances, the reader of the work here presented may well judge how fortunate that it should have been undertaken, con amove, by a gentleman so well prepared by general scholarship, by exact practical knowledge, and by extensive inquiry into the mercantile and manufacturing, as well as the agricultural bearings of the question.

It is due, however, no less in justice to ourselves than to truth, to add, that in urging him to undertake it, we had no idea of committing the author to such an amount of labor, even had we foreseen that being, as he says, a " labor of love," it would have thus ended in producing, as in our judgment it has, decidedly, the best work on the subject of Sheep, that has at any time appeared in our country.

May we not refer, for the soundness of this opinion, as well to its originality and strictly American character, as to the comprehensiveness with which it presents the subject in its various relations, instructive alike to the merchant, the manufacturer, the political inquirer, and the legislator ; as to the practical farmer ? Nor is it to be characterized alone by its utility in these respects ; for the reader will agree with us that its entire fairness and freedom from narrow views and local prejudices, much enlarge, in a moral and instructive view, its title to general confidence and favor.

Finally, as far as the public judgment may be anticipated in reference to a production originally appearing disadvantageously, in detached parts, and not until now finished and embodied ; if we may conclude from the favorable manner in which such portions have been reviewed and recommended, by some of the leading journals of the country, the writer may well felicitate himself on having rendered a most acceptable service not only to his brother farmers, but to his countrymen generally ; while we may unaffectedly, and, as we think, confidently add, it establishes for Col. Randall himself a claim to stand in front of those whose pens, some of them under high motives of patriotism, have been engaged in illustrating one of the most important of all our industrial pursuits; nay, one which may be considered essential, in an eminent degree, to our national independence.

J. S. SKINNER.

INTllODUCTION.

The subject of Sheep Husbandry has recently attracted more attention in oui Southern and South-western States, than at any previous period. The waut of a staple or product, the cultivation of which should render productive the capital invested in millions of acres of mountain and other lands, which do not now yield a farthino- of income, and which, from their soils, situation, or other circumstances, are unadapted to the growth of any of the present Southern staples, has struck every Southern man, as well as every traveller of ordinary intelligence, who has passed through the regions indicated. The want, too, of some class of domestic animals to constitute the basis, or pivot an it were, of a system of convertible husbandry on the tillage lands of the South, to take the place of the present imperfect rotations! of crops, and new and old field-system, has become apparent to many of her more investigating agriculturists.

The fact that the mountain and other unproductive lands alluded to cannot be made to profitably yield any vegetable products but pasturage ; that for the present, and for a long time to come, at least, the bulk of them will not afford a pasturage adapted to the support of large animals; could not but suggest the growing of wool, as their best, if not their only available staple. The similarity of their general climate, too, with that where wool is most cheaply grown on the Eastern Continent, was a consideration promising favorably to this husbandry. And, finally, it had not failed to strike men of ordinary commercial intelligence, that of those animal staples, to the production of which a Southern climate is adapted, the Sheep furnishes a vastly more marketable one than any of the larger grazing animals.

The superiority of the Sheep over other animals for supporting the fertility of tillage lands, by converting a portion of their products into manure, was not so apparent. But the well-known fact that they receive the preference for this purpose, in some of the best agricultural countries of the world, made it sufficiently probable to demand a full investigation, before adopting an adverse conclusion, especially as what has been said in relation to climate and the markgtableness of animal staples, was as applicable to these l^nds, in the South, as to those adapted only to grass.

But Sheep Husbandry as a system, and especially a system tested by experience, vras scarcely known in any of the Southern States excepting in western Virginia. Whether the theoretical considerations and natural circumstances which apparently favored its introduction would be met, in practice, with unforeseen obstacles, was a matter calling for grave circumspection^ The Southern agriculturist is ever wary of innovation, and very properly averse to rash experiment. He knew, it is true, that his roving and untended " native" sheep obtained subsistence, and found no

8 INTRODUCTION.

enemies to their health but the wolf and cur, on all the Southern zones. Hut whether the local climate and herbag^e of those different zones — the low, level, Tertiary sands of the Atlantic plain — the granite hills of the middle, and the elevated Paleozoic or Transition regions of the mountain zone — would be found to agree with tlie more valuable breeds of sheep ; whether their wool would retain its qualities or degenerate in these several localities ; whether a greatly increased supply of wool would find a remunerating price in market; whether the mountains could be converted into sheep-pastures, and wool produced on them without an expense which would absorb all the profits ; whether Sheep Husbandry could be made a substitute for " resting," or expensive artificial manu/es, in restoring to the cotton, tobacco, and grain lands of the middle and tide-water zones the fertility withdrawn by tillage ; and various other important correlative questions were all problems to him. And to add to the difficulties of forming a correct opinion, and especially of instituting safe and satisfactory experiments, he was ignorant of all the practical details and manipulations of Sheep Husbandry : he knew little of the various breeds, and their respective adaptation to his wants.

For information on the subject of practical Sheep Husbandry and breeds of sheep, there are a multitude of European, and several American works, of great value. But for the answers to the questions in the preceding paragraph, which involve the particular bearings and adaptation of this husbandry, of the different breeds, etc., to the agricultural circumstances and wants of the various regions of the Southwhere was the inquirer to find the desired information 1 Some well-written letters, embracing portions of these topics, have appeared from time to time in our agricultural journals. They have been of great value in drawing attention to the subject. But they have not usually occupied limits sufficient for the examination of more than a single phase of the general subject, or they have been mere coup cfaih of that subject, omitting all but a few important facts and considerations of a general character. They have, too, usually been replied to, or published contemporaneously in the same or other agricultural journals, with contradictory statements — sometimes with crude and erroneous speculations — calculated to confuse or mislead the inexperienced inquirer. Beyond these occasional Letters in the agricultural journals, nothing, so far as I am aware, has appeared on this subject.

A practical farmer, I have bred nearly all the approved varieties of almost every iind of domestic stock — of every kind commonly kept on Northern farms — and have been familiar with the details of their management and husbandry. I have owned flocks of sheep, and been more or less familiar with them, from my childhood ; and for the last fifteen years have made their economy, their habits, their comparative profitableness with other kinds of stock, and the comparative value of their breeds, matters of careful and constant observation and experiment.

When Corresponding Secretary of the New York State Agricultural Society, a few years since, the facts drawn out by me in an extensive correspondence with eminent Southern agriculturists, united to what knowledge I had previously obtained by reading and personal observation of the Southern States, led me to th impression that there were numerous considerations and natural circumstances strongly indicating the expediency of introducing wool-growing extensively into those States. But at that time, my attention, in common with that of many if not most, of tlie Northern flock-masters, was turned towards the prairies of the North-west, as a region capable of sweeping away all American competition in this branch of husbandry. Glowing estimates and calculations had been predicated on very partial experiments. The value of the natural grasses, the character of the winters und general climate, and the general facilities of the prairies for wool-growing, were then little understood here, and had been made the subjects of much favorable exag-

Introduction

gpration. 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 _/?ne 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 greal 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 cf 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 a's 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

B

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 latter 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 they 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 ? 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 1 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 attaining 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 baroarian nations in battle, they nearly as often trampled down their friends as tlieir 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 begiiming 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 wkat

INTRODUCTION 11 would be their ultimate limits — usually with one or more of the immediately preceding numbers in the hands of the printer, and consequently not under my inspection. I have not therefore had that opportunity to proportion the space d-evoted 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, Linneeus, 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 facts. 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 beai 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 sufficiently 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 cij account of their reluctance

12 INTRODUCTION.

to be cited as authority for facts, where their modesty leads them to underrate their own comparative knowledcre 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 much valuable information on the subject of Southern Agriculture, and who has evej evinced a most earnest desire to contribute to the improvement of that Agriculture.

HENRY S. RANDALL.

Letter I

Effect of Climitb os the Health and Wool-producing Qualities of Sheep. 15

LETTER IL Effect of Climate (continued) 23

LETTER IIL

Adaptation of the Soils, Herbage, &c., of the Southern States to Sheep

HUSBANDRT. 1. Of THE LoW OR Tl JE-WATER RegION 80

LETTER IV.

The Adaptation op the Soils, Herbage, &c., of the Sottthern States to Sheep Husbandry, (continued.) — 2. Of the Middle or Hillt Zone. — 3. Of the Mountain Region 42

LETTER V.

Profits of Sheep Husbandrt in the Southern States. — 1. Direct Profit

on Capital invested 52

LETTER VL

Profits of Sheep Husbandrt in the Southern States. — 2. As the Basis op

Amelioration in Naturallx Sterile and Worn-out Soils 66

LETTER VIL

Profits of Sheep Husbandrt in the Southern States. — 3. Bt Giving to Southern Agriculture a Mixed and Convertible Character. — 4. Bt Furnishing the Raw Material for the Manufacture of Domestic Woollens 78

LETTER Vm.

Prospects of the Wool Market — Future Demand and Supplt 94

14 CONTENTS.

• Pact

LETTER IX. »

Pbobp£cts op thb Wool Market — Future Demand and Supplt 108

) LETTER X; ,

Brxsss of Sheep ik the United States 129 I

LETTER XL

The Most Profitable Breed of Sheep fob the South — Principles of

Breeding 153

LETTER Xn. ,

Summer Management of Sheep 173

LETTER XIIL

Winter Management of Sheep 197

I

LETTER XIV.

Air^TOMT AND Diseases of Sheep 219

LETTER XV.

Anatomy of the Sheep, (continued.) — Diseases and their Treatment 234

LETTER XVL Diseases and their Treatment, (continued) 254

LETTER XVIL Sheep Doas, Wool Depots, &c.. ^"8