SHEEP HUSBANDRY IN THE SOUTH. 93 



barren pine forests. Being thus independent of their owners, they 

 keep in uniform good flesh, grow to better maturity, and furnish better 

 fleeces, than in the upper portion of the State. Though here they know 

 neither their " owner, nor their master's crib," they contribute largely 

 to clothing and feeding his family. 



Standing on JMount Mitchel, on the western border of the State, the 

 most elevated point between the Mississippi River and the Atlantic, 

 looking eastward the mind's eye reaches the waves of the Atlantic, five 

 hundred miles distant, and sweeps over an area of 45,500 square miles, 

 embraced within the State lines, watered by thousands of tributaries to 

 noble rivers, which gush from the mountain battlements stretched 

 across the western border of the State, whose waters, flowing eastward, 

 tumble over innumerable falls ; as though Nature had given them, not 

 only to beautify the landscape, but to invite the enterprise of man to 

 their utilization. From the broad plateau below, a thousand other 

 never-failing fountains send forth their pure waters, which mingle as 

 they flow onward to swell the grand arteries which convey them to 

 their common reservoir. Through, over, and across this grand pros- 

 pect, numerous railways stretch their lengths, over which freighted 

 trains are sweeping to and fro ; bearing out the productions, and bring- 

 ing in the commerce, of the country. 



Of this immense territory it may be said, there is not a square mile 

 of soil which is not susceptible of being made to produce a remunera- 

 tive yield to tillage, and not one upon which would not ordinarily be 

 found a good natural pasturage for sheep ; nor is there a square mile of 

 it upon which, when sheep were introduced and cared for, would not, 

 year by year, be improved by their presence and pasturage upon it. 

 There is no part of the State which does not possess immense natural 

 advantages in soil and climate over the Southdown hills of England, 

 the sterility of which rendered them almost uninhabitable, until sheep 

 were introduced upon them, by which they have been converted into 

 the greenest meadows of the island. In the mountains and hill coun- 

 try more winter provisions would be required than in the balance of 

 the State ; but the shortness of the season would not demand much ex- 

 pense, nor render the care of flocks burdensome. In three-fourths of 

 the State, no other winter provision would be necessary than the sow- 

 ing of grasses and small grain for their pasturage, and the providing 

 of cheap shelters from occasional seasons of inclemency. The farmers 

 have practised the habit of grazing their sheep upon their fields of 

 small grain during the winter, which, when judiciously done, rather 

 contributes to, than detracts from, their yield at harvest. In the pine 



