STEEP TRAILS 



for the uses of nature as a meadowlark killed 

 and plucked and roasted. Give to Nature every 

 cultured apple — codling, pippin, russet — and 

 every sheep so laboriously compounded — 

 muffled Southdowns, hairy Cotswolds, wrin- 

 kled Merinos — and she would throw the one 

 to her caterpillars, the other to her wolves. 



It is now some thirty-six hundred years 

 since Jacob kissed his mother and set out 

 across the plains of Padan-aram to begin his ex- 

 periments upon the flocks of his uncle, Laban; 

 and, notwithstanding the high degree of excel- 

 lence he attained as a wool-grower, and the 

 innumerable painstaking efforts subsequently 

 made by individuals and associations in all 

 kinds of pastures and climates, we still seem 

 to be as far from definite and satisfactory re- 

 sults as we ever were. In one breed the wool 

 is apt to wither and crinkle like hay on a sun- 

 beaten hillside. In another, it is lodged and 

 matted together like the lush tangled grass of 

 a manured meadow. In one the staple is defi- 

 cient in length, in another in fineness; while in 

 all there is a constant tendency toward disease, 

 rendering various washings and dippings indis- 

 pensable to prevent its faUing out. The prob- 

 lem of the quality and quantity of the carcass 

 seems to be as doubtful and as far removed 

 from a satisfactory solution as that of the wool. 



16 



