16 SHEEP HUSBANDRY IN THE SOUTH. 



of summer heat, not only supply to all the surrounding country profuse 

 rain, with numerous, and at certain seasons almost daily, showers, but 

 immerse all vegetation in an atmosphere charged to repletion with a 

 liquid and bland solution ; hence the long, trailing, moisture-loving 

 mosses of the Southern forests, and hence a vigor of the cotton-plant 

 and softness of its staple elsewhere hardly paralleled." 



It need not be said that the influences which affect the 

 cotton-plant so favorably must have an equally beneficial 

 effect upon the plants required for the pasturage and forage 

 of sheep, provided they are adapted to the climate ; especially 

 upon the grasses, grass of all vegetation being soonest affected 

 by drought on the one hand, and an over-abundance of rain 

 on the other. " It is," says a recent writer on British sheep- 

 farming, " the regularly distributed rain the fine weekly or 

 bi-weekly showers that the grazier can alone build upon for 

 success in raising wool and mutton." The very existence of 

 the American cotton belt proves at least that within it no 

 such droughts can prevail as compel the transhumance of the 

 merinos of Spain and Upper California, and in Lower Cali- 

 fornia destroyed during the last year millions of sheep. 



The G-rasses. In a country where cotton was, until very 

 recently, looked to as the only market crop, and grass as 

 the deadliest enemy of cotton, and where but few animals 

 were required for labor, it could not be supposed that there 

 should exist the rich, thick-swarded pastures or meadows 

 of many portions of the North. But grass culture is now 

 attracting large attention at the South, and, happily, from 

 persons of science and practical knowledge. Conspicuous 

 among them was Mr. C. W. Howard, recently deceased, 

 whose extremely well-written manual on the cultivation of 

 grasses and forage plants at the South is the principal source 

 of the notes which follow. Mr. Howard, speaking gener- 

 ally but carefully, says, that, after an observation of more 

 than twenty years, he does " not hesitate to say, if ground be 

 made sufficiently rich and as well prepared ; that if judgment 

 be exercised in sowing, and in adaptation of species to par- 

 ticular localities, and proper subsequent management be ob- 

 served, that, so far as soil and climate are concerned, the 



