THE EMIGRANT'S HAND-BOOK. 215 



one. Not that they require so much more food in cola 

 weather than in warm, but that sudden changes affect 

 their appetites and without injuring their health. Again 

 a sheep of proper form and inclination to fatten, will not 

 need so^much nutriment to preserve its health, as one of 

 the same weight of a coarse, rawboned, uneasy make. 



From present experiments, the introduction and raising 

 of SHEEP on the vast prairies of the West are to be antici- 

 pated, and it would not be surprising if there should be a 

 great change in the territory to which the consumers of 

 wool must look for much of their raw material. Hitherto, 

 the New-England and Middle States have principally fur- 

 nished the market with wool. But sheep are already begin- 

 ning to acquire importance in the view of the farmers and 

 planters of the West and South ; and if the importation of 

 1100 merino bucks in a single year into South America, 

 produced such a change in their flocks, why may not 

 equally as striking a result be effected in the Western amd 

 Southern States by a similar introduction there ? Mil- 

 lions of sheep could be sustained at little expense on the 

 belt of the oak-timber land running through Georgia, 

 seventy miles wide by one hundred and fifty miles long. 

 Indeed, there is scarcely one of the Southern States but 

 would furnish some good section for the keeping of flocks 

 on the uplands. Planters are now also actually begin- 

 ning to collect their flocks. The sheep-raising States of 

 the North must expect competition. The farmer in the 

 higher and colder latitudes, who has to fodder his flocks 

 for a long winter, will certainly feel the effect of this new 

 direction of sheep husbandry, brought, as he will be, into 

 competition with those who enjoy the advantage of an al- 

 most perennial spring. So soon as the planter ceases to 

 be absorbed in the production of cotton, the streams of the 

 South will be lined with mills, and various operations of 



