SHEEP HUSBANDRY IN THE SOUTH. 



17 



production in these staples, according to the U. S. census of 1840, in the 

 States south of the Ohio and Potomac, and west of the Mississippi, (in- 

 cluding Louisiana,) in 1839. To these are added, by way of comparison, 

 the statistics of the State of New-York, under the same heads, for the 

 same year : 



TABLE No. 1. 



The above is only given to indicate approximate general results ; for, 

 as I shall subsequently show, the returns of the product of wool are inac- 

 curate to the last degree. 



The question now arises, whence the immense disparity in the growth 

 and manufacturing of wool in the State of New-York, comprising 46,000 

 square miles of territory, and less than two and a half millions of popula- 

 lation, and the ten States above enumerated, covering an area of 495,000 

 square miles, and exceeding six millions of population ] Is the growing of 

 wool, (for we will first consider this, as the main question, leaving the sub- 

 ject of manufacturing for subsequent examination,) to its present extent, 

 profitable or unprofitable in the State of New- York ] I contend, and shall 

 attempt to prove, that taking a term of say ten or fifteen years, it has been 

 the most profitable branch of industry earned on in the State. If this is 

 true, why is it not equally profitable in the Southern States ]* Is there 

 anything in their climate which renders them less favorable to the health 

 or wool-producing qualities of the sheep or is there anything in their 

 topographical features, soils, herbage, or other circumstances, which unfits 

 them for a natural and easy adaptation to sheep husbandry ] Or have 

 they other staples so much more profitable that it is not an object to grow 

 wool? 



Having bestowed some attention on these points, and having been prac- 

 tically familiar with the most minute details of sheep husbandry from my 

 childhood, I have thought that the conclusions I have arrived at, and the 

 facts on which I have based them, might not be uninteresting to you. To 

 bring these facts connectedly before you, I shall necessarily be driven to 

 repeat some matter from my own and the writings of others, which you 

 have doubtless before seen in the publications of the day. 



Let us now take up the first of the two preceding questions ; and first 1 

 will call your attention to the effect of Climate. 



Sheep have been bred, time out of mind, on the Eastern Continent, 

 from the Equator to the 65th degree of north latitude, from the burning 

 plains of Africa and Asia, to the almost perpetual frosts cf Iceland. The 

 Merino, (the different families of which, as will be shown, constitute the 

 only varieties suitable for wool growing on a scale of any considerable 

 extent,) has been ired in Europe, for ages, as far south as between the 



* When I use the words " Southern States," without farther specification, you will understand me to 

 mean the ten enumerated in Table let. 



(651) C 



