92 APPENDIX. 



" native " breed, rarely improved by crosses upon foreign blood. As a 

 general rule, these small flocks never entered into their owner's esti- 

 mate of his valuable property, and they were never so treated. In the 

 spring, they were shorn of their fleeces, and turned outside their own- 

 er's enclosures to seek their summer support in the forests and waste 

 lands, over which they chose to roam, and to run the gauntlet for life 

 among hungry hounds and gaunt curs, almost as numerous as them- 

 selves. All that might escape, and were able to find their homes in the 

 fall season, and would seek its inhospitalities for the winter, would be 

 admitted within the gates, and permitted to eke out a scanty living in 

 the denuded fields and corners of worm-fences ; which is supple- 

 mented by a morning and evening allowance of corn fodder, which the 

 compassionate and appreciative owner allows to be fed to them by a 

 boy who has not yet attained sufficient size to be otherwise useful. 

 The only protection against the rains and occasional storms of winter 

 afforded to a majority of these flocks being such as their instincts lead 

 them to seek by hovering on the sheltering sides of barns and outbuild- 

 ings that may be accessible, a tumble-down or waste-house on a planta- 

 tion is a perfect asylum for them. Yet, under this treatment, the flocks 

 of the farmers keep their numbers full, and occasionally multiply be- 

 yond their wants. Of necessity, their fleeces are light and inferior. 

 Whenever an effort has been made to improve the stock by crossing 

 upon merino or other approved blood, the effect is satisfactory and last- 

 ing. From the universal custom of turning the entire stocks into the 

 common "range," the impression of a merino, Southdown, or other 

 importation, would manifest itself upon the flocks of entire neighbor- 

 hoods. So apparent is the improvement thus made, that, in purchasing 

 the surplus brought to market, there would be no difficulty in recogniz- 

 ing the wool from a neighborhood that had been favored by some enter- 

 prising farmer having imported from Virginia or Pennsylvania a pair 

 of blooded animals. Without any change in the mode of treatment, 

 these improvements are known to be distinctly manifest in neighbor- 

 hoods thirty years after their introduction. Being able to withstand 

 all this hardship and neglect, and promptly to respond to every effort 

 to improve their quality or condition, it is evident that there is in North 

 Carolina an adaptation of natural gifts to their peculiar wants. 



In the tide-water and contiguous counties, where the influence of 

 winter winds from the mountains is not felt, " where the snow spirit 

 never comes, and where spring flings her flowers into the lap of winter," 

 these generous animals find a sustaining pasturage, the entire year, 

 upon the wire grass which grows spontaneously through the otherwise 



