OR, A TREATISE ON PILE. 17] 
And lastly, we must anticipate an objection which may possibly be made to our twofold 
division of Sheep, into the hairy Sheep and the woolly Sheep, namely, that there are 
Sheep which have both hair and wool. Now, suppose our opponents were able to demon- 
strate that these Sheep belonged to a third species; this would by no means invalidate the 
positions we have advanced. But we believe that the true answer to such an objection 
would be, that the “hairy and woolly Sheep” are hybrids, which, like the mulatto before 
noticed, exhibit the separate integuments bequeathed respectively by both their progenitors. 
And we might as well here notice, that it has been said that Sheep taken from one climate 
to another, will partly change their coats; portions of the hair of some falling out and 
being replaced by wool; and portions of wool of others falling out and being replaced by 
hair; for no one in his senses would contend that a single filament of either of these 
integuments can be transformed into the other.* 
Now this change of coat, if it ever takes place at all,t never happens to either the pure 
hairy Sheep or the pure woolly Sheep, but is a condition of these hybrids who have 
already hair and wool. 
From all which we are decidedly of opinion, that the American Sheep breeder, whose 
object is to lay the foundation of a permanent, self-producing stock, or, if he will, of two 
such stocks, (in different places,) inheriting respectively and equally the good qualities 
of both their parents, should abstain from mingling together the hairy Sheep and the 
woolly Sheep. He ought to do so as a measure of prudence, were it only that he incurred 
the risk of injuring his flock, a@ multo fortiori, after we have positively proved that such 
crosses are unmitigated evils, 
Are crosses of hairy and woolly Sheep recommended to save expense of outfit? No 
outlay of capital can justly be considered as extravagant which has for its object to preserve 
a permanent purity of stock. Is it to save time? It is tame lost, and not time saved, to 
commence by such an abnormal crossing. 
When an architect is about to erect a noble superstructure, destined to last for genera- 
tions, he commences by laying a perfectly solid foundation, regardless of a moderate 
expenditure of time and money. The breeding and raising of Sheep, aud the production 
of fleece, promises to be, in this country, a great and important undertaking; let us not 
then destroy it, in the beginning, by a hasty and inoperative plan of breeding. 
EXAMPLE OF THE WOOLLY SHEEP sPecIES.—Froia what has been already said, it will 
be anticipated that the example of the mov/-bearing species of Sheep is the breed some- 
* Mr, Latham, (in Nat. Hist. of Var. of Man, p. 62,) speaks of the hair “changing,” but his views are not explained, 
{ Lawrence says that it does not appear, that the change of climate will convert the wool of an individual English Sheep 
into hair; and it is equally incapable of conferring a woolly covering on a hairy Sheep. Dr. Wright, who lived many years 
in Jamaica, speaking of the opinion that the wool of Sheep becomes more hairy in warm climates, says that in the West 
India Islands there is to be found a breed of Sheep, the origin of which he has not yet been able to trace, that carry very 
thin fleece of a coarse, shaggy kind of wool; which circumstance, he thinks, may naturally have given rise to the report. 
But he never observed a Sheep that had been brought from England to carry wool of the same sort with these native Sheep ; 
on the contrary, though he has known them live there several years, these English Sheep carried the same kind of close, 
burly fleece that is common in England, and as far as he could observe, it was equally free from hair.” 
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