OK, A TREATISE ON PILE. 171 



And lastly, we must anticipate an objection which may possibly be made to our twofold 

 division of Sheep, into the hairy Sheep and the woolly Sheep, namely, that there are 

 Sheep which have both hair and wool. Now, 'suppose our opponents were able to demon- 

 strate that these Sheep belonged to a third species; this would by no means invalidate the 

 positions we have advanced. But we believe that the true answer to such an objection 

 would be, that the "hairy and woolly Sheep" are hybrids, which, like the mulatto before 

 noticed, exhibit the separate integuments bequeathed respectively by both their progenitors. 

 And we might as well here notice, that it has been said that Sheep taken from one climate 

 to another, will partly change their coats; portions of the hair of some falling out and 

 being replaced by wool; and portions of wool of others falling out and being replaced by 

 hair; for no one in his senses would contend that a single filament of either of these 

 integuments can be transformed into the other.* 



Now this change of coat, if it ever takes place at all,f never happens to either the pure 

 hairy Sheep or the pure woolly Sheep, but is a condition of these hybrids who have 

 already hair and wool. 



From all which we are decidedly of opinion, that the American Sheep breeder, whose 

 object is to lay the foundation of a permanent, self-producing stock, or, if he will, of two 

 such stocks, (in different places,) inheriting respectively and equally the good qualities 

 of both their parents, should abstain from mingling together the hairy Sheep and the 

 woolly Sheep. He ought to do so as a measure of prudence, were it only that he incurred 

 the risk of injuring his flock, a multo fortiori, after we have positively proved that such 

 crosses are unmitigated evils. 



Are crosses of hairy and woolly Sheep recommended to save expense of outfit ? No 

 outlay of capital can justly be considered as extravagant which has for its object to preserve 

 apcrmanrnt purity of stock. Is it to save time? It is time lost, and not time saved, to 

 commence by such an abnormal crossing. 



When an architect is about to erect a noble superstructure, destined to last for genera- 

 tions, he commences by laying a perfectly solid foundation, regardless of a moderate 

 expenditure of time and money. The breeding and raising of Sheep, and the production 

 of fleece, promises to be, in this country, a great and important undertaking; let us not 

 then destroy it, in the beginning, by a hasty and inoperative plan of breeding. 



EXAMPLE OF THE WOOLLY SHEEP SPECIES. From what has been already said, it will 

 be anticipated that the example of the wool-bearing species of Sheep is the breed some- 



* Mr. Latham, (in Nat. Hist, of Var. of Man, p. 62,) speaks of the hair "changing," but his views are not explained, 

 t Lawrence says that it does not appear, that the change of climate will convert the wool of an individual English Sheep 

 into hair ; and it is equally incapable of conferring a woolly covering on a hairy Sheep. Dr. Wright, who lived many years 

 in Jamaica, speaking of the opinion that the wool of Sheep becomes more hairy in warm climates, says that in the West 

 India Islands there is to be found a breed of Sheep, the origin of which he has not yet been able to trace, that carry very 

 thin fleece of a coarse, shaggy kind of wool ; which circumstance, he thinks, may naturally have given rise to the report. 

 But he never observed a Sheep that had been brought from England to carry wool of the same sort with these native Sheep; 

 on the contrary, though he has known them live there several years, these English Sheop carried the same kind of close, 

 burly fleece that is common in England, and as far as he could observe, it was equally frc from hair." 



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