SHEEP HUSBANDRY IN THE SOUTH. 3 



our grand national railroads ; which must not stop for fear 

 that the town which has sprung up on its route may be 

 eclipsed by another, and yet another, which springs up as it 

 advances. It must march on until it- spans the continent ; 

 although, when it reaches its western verge, San Francisco 

 may be compelled to divide her trade with Chicago. To say 

 that the production of the new State will compete with that 

 of the old, and that new industries will vie with those long 

 established, is to state the principal object of the national 

 system. Domestic competition, with its accruing cheapness, 

 excellence, and abundance of production, neutralizes the ap- 

 parent taxation imposed under the protective system. Domes- 

 tic competition, gradual, equable, and healthful, and not, 

 like foreign competition, spasmodic, irregular, and incapable 

 of being guarded against, and hence disastrous, lifts the 

 industries from their old ruts, introduces economies, labor- 

 saving machines and processes, compels a constant watchful- 

 ness for the popular tastes and necessities, and an incessant 

 activity for superior cheapness or excellence, and thus con- 

 verts protection from a tax to a boon. It is only when the 

 nation blushes to own each new star which she adds to her 

 banner, that she will regret the competition in industry which 

 each new State makes with the old." 



As then at the East writing of the far West, so now at the 

 East writing of the South, we pursue the subject in the 

 interest of the national wool industry, and not of a section. 

 Still, while free from sectional predilections, we cannot divest 

 ourselves of sympathy for a people emerging from the over- 

 throw of a cherished social system, and struggling for the 

 higher and broader industrial life to which recent events have 

 forced them; and cannot but take . pleasure in pointing out 

 some of the means which offer for settling their waste and 

 restoring their impoverished lands, for employing their labor 

 and diversifying their industries. 



Although sheep were early introduced into Georgia, and 

 flourished to such a degree, during the colonial period, that 

 their wool was commended by British travellers to the Eng- 

 lish clothiers as " equal to the Spanish, and superior to that 



