SOUTH AFRICA IN A FARMING LIGHT. 21 



The same cause works in the agricultural districts, 

 where everything is comparatively on a small scale, and 

 things are done in a primitive style; but this is all in 

 favour of the young emigrant of little or no capital. 



The Romans held that the sheep was shod with gold, 

 i.e., that it brought wealth wherever it Avent, in that it 

 enriched the land. This is so where they are enclosed, 

 and leave their dung on the land ; but it is the very 

 reverse where they are herded in flocks. Then they 

 trample and loosen the best of the soil, which gets blown 

 in heaps and washed away ; whilst the under-soil gets 

 liardened down, and the rain runs off instead of soaking 

 in. The manure which should be re-fertilising it gets 

 deposited in enormous heaps where the sheep are kraaled 

 at night, and where it is utterly lost to the soil. The 

 sheep feeding year in and year out over the same ground, 

 the best of the herbs are eaten down and prevented 

 from seeding, till they die out and their place is taken 

 by inferior kinds. This is what has gone on all over the 

 Cape Colony, till many parts have ceased to support 

 sheep at all. 



Very great injury was done to the sheep industry by 

 over- stocking, and allowing old, sickly, and inferior 

 sheep to breed. This was partly done in error, and 

 partly because, previous to the discovery of diamonds, 

 there was no market for surplus stock ; but the inevit- 



