20 SHEEP HUSBANDRY IN THE SOUTH. 



" More than thirty years ago, the writer, walking with a gentleman 

 of far-reaching mind, and observing the gullied and excoriated condition 

 of the soil near Milledgeville, inquired : ' What is to restore its fertility 

 to the worn-out portion of Georgia ? ' The answer was promptly given : 

 ' Sheep, and Bermuda grass.' There was profound wisdom in the reply. 

 A large portion of old Georgia must become a sheep-walk, before it can 

 be restored to fertility, and the land-owners can become independent of 

 the negro." 



A correspondent from Memphis, Tennessee, writing to the 

 Department of Agriculture in January of the present year, 

 says : 



" The best of all our grasses, though not a winter grass, is the Ber- 

 muda. Too much cannot be said about it as a pasture grass ; and, if 

 the South were half covered with it, we could then have fat sheep and 

 plenty. For successful sheep-raising at the South, we want this grass 

 alone. Turnips, plenty of them, not patches, large fields of them, 

 and fields of rye or wheat or oats to pasture on in winter, will make 

 up for the rest of the year." 



Forage Plants. To this testimony as to the relations of 

 Bermuda grass to Southern sheep husbandry may be added 

 although his enthusiastic deductions need some qualification 

 that of Dr. George Little, the State geologist of Georgia, 

 who says : 



" When the value of Bermuda grass is appreciated by farmers, and 

 the thin and waste portions of their farms are clothed with it, which 

 seems to have been intended especially for sheep, Georgia will sustain 

 a sheep to every acre of territory, and 37,000,000 of sheep would be 

 worth to their owners in the aggregate $37,000,000, net, per annum, 

 nearly double the present gross value of the cotton crop of the State." 



There are exceptional periods when winter pastures will 

 prove insufficient. These periods, short at the extreme South, 

 become longer with, the ascending latitudes. Some supply of 

 cured forage is indispensable for these periods. The field pea, 

 which grows luxuriantly on all the sandy soils of the Tertiary 

 formations of the South, is for that country what the clover is 

 to the North. It is highly recommended by Mr. Howard and 

 Dr. Randall as a winter forage for the South, as its haulm, or 

 straw, when cut partially green, makes a rich fodder relished 



