94 APPENDIX. 



lands and tide-water portion of the State, they do live independent of 

 the care of man, but would certainly reward him for care and attention. 



If climate and soil are adapted to sheep husbandry, Nature has fur- 

 nished her share of the requisites. Man must supply the flocks, and, 

 in obedience to the divine command, till the earth for their subsistence. 

 Sheep-growing in certain of the States of New England, where pasture 

 lands are worth five or ten times as much as in North Carolina, is the 

 staple business in its rural districts. Its people look to their flocks, as 

 the Southern planter does to his broad acres of cotton, for their income. 

 There the severities of a Northern winter lock up all Nature's supplies, 

 and render all domestic animals dependent upon the hand of man for 

 protection and food for one-third of each year ; yet that enterprising 

 people have converted these States into a vast sheep-walk, arid, sub- 

 duing all obstacles, have developed the wool-bearing capability of sheep 

 to a degree heretofore unknown. A contrast between the advan- 

 tages and disadvantages of New England and North Carolina in 

 regard to this profitable enterprise is invited, and the advantages of 

 the latter will be apparent. If, with the natural disadvantages under 

 which they labor, they have developed so great a profit in this pursuit, 

 why should not North Carolina become animated with the abounding 

 presence of this valuable animal ? Why should not her hills and dales 

 be made vocal with bleating flocks, and the song of the shepherd 

 awaken her echoes as they float over her fertile vales and picturesque 

 landscapes? Why should our farmers, year after year, spend their 

 hard earnings for commercial fertilizers, and wear out their physical 

 energies in toil and labor to make money enough to buy more artificial 

 manures, to enable them to grow more cotton, when the presence of 

 one hundred sheep upon his lands would enrich five acres every month 

 in the year, far better than their purchased fertilizers ; and would, at the 

 same time, pay them in wool and mutton a better per cent upon their 

 value than their cotton does upon their labor and expense ? 



The changed circumstances of the people of North Carolina calls 

 for a change in their agriculture. Millions of wealth have been real- 

 ized in less favored countries by the growth of sheep ; and it is an 

 enterprise worthy the investigation of her people. This article is not 

 written with the view of presenting the profits of husbandry, or of con- 

 trasting it with the present agricultural pursuits of her people ; but to 

 show the adaptation of the State to its successful pursuit, and to call 

 attention to its natural advantages over countries where it is profitably 

 pursued. It is hoped that the intelligent people of the State will in- 

 vestigate the subject, and that those engaged in it elsewhere may be 



