46 SHEEP HUSBANDRY. 



race. The sheep has followed man through all his migrations more 

 closely than any other animal. Indeed, save that he may borrow 

 in summer, when not wanted, and about to be thrown away, the 

 coat of his humble follower for his own winter covering, it is easy 

 to see that man could scarcely inhabit any but the tropical 

 regions of the globe. Undoubtedly for many ages the sheep fared 

 as hard as the fur-bearing animals still do, who yield up their wool, 

 their skins and their lives ; and the gentle-hearted reformer who 

 first suggested shearing off the wool and leaving the sheep to grow 

 another fleece, was doubtless stoutly resisted by the conservatives 

 of his times. But that old controversy is forgotten in the din 

 excited by later innovations. 



The methods of sheep husbandry are not wholly unknown, 

 though most of us remember the feeding and care of sheep as an 

 employment of our childhood. I doubt, however, if there are as 

 many skilful shearers of sheep in your town of Columbia, as there 

 were forty years ago, when you had not a third of your present 

 population. As to the home manufacture of wool in our houses, 

 there is a still greater degeneracy. The pianos outnumber the 

 spinning wheels ; and there are more Washington County women 

 who can read Schiller in the original German, than who can skil- 

 fully card hand rolls. Still these so recently lost mis are not so 

 wholly forgotten, that the economy, which our hard national for- 

 tunes may compel us again to learn, may not bring them back in 

 all their ancient glory. 



We may safely enter upon the production of wool, because it 

 will ever be, as it has ever been, a prime article of human consump- 

 tion. There will always be a demand for it in the markets of the 

 world, so long as the earth shall maintain its present alternations 

 of heat and cold. Though it preceded by many ages all other 

 fibrils in its use for human clothing, it has maintained its superi- 

 ority over all other textile fabrics. Notwithstanding tlie gorgeous 

 glossiness which delicate art can give to silk, as spotless and 

 smooth and fine as woven linen may be made, as flexile and tena- 

 cious and unchanged when subjected to water, heat and friction, as 

 muslin is, there can be more beauty, durability, worth, and conse- 

 quently price, combined in a square yard of woolen, than in an equal 

 quantity of either of these materials. The African and Hindoo wear 

 their bands of hand woven cotton, or full garments of delicate nan- 

 kin the Chinese and Japanese nobility flaunt in their purple and yel- 



