INTRODUCTION. 11 



would be their ultimate limits usually with one or more of the immediately pre- 

 ceding numbers in the hands of the printer, and consequently not under my inspec- 

 tion. I have not therefore had that opportunity to proportion the space devoted to 

 the several topics, avoid repetition, and correct errors, possessed by him who com- 

 pletes and revises, before any portion of his manuscript is rendered unalterable by 

 tereotyping. 



Reliance on insufficient authority has in a very few instances led me into errors, 

 but fortunately, so far as discovered, they have been of trifling importance, and in 

 relation to matters of no especial moment. Those thought worthy of notice have 

 been corrected in subsequent parts of the body of the work. The causes I have 

 named, therefore, affect rather the literary character of the Letters, than their 

 general accuracy. 



In stating important facts and conclusions, I have consulted such writers of repu- 

 tation as were within my reach. Among the foreign ones who have prepared works 

 on Sheep Husbandry, or expressed important opinions on some of its separate 

 topics or facts, or who have alluded to the Sheep Husbandry of particular countries 

 or nations, reference has been had to the following, either by consulting their works, 

 as I have in most instances been able to do or by quotations from them found in 

 the works of other writers of reputation; Anderson, Bakewell, Barnes, Barrow, 

 Bischoff, Blacklock, Kourgoing, Bright, Carr, Coventry, Culley, Cunningham, 

 D'Arboval, Darwin, Daubenton, Dick, Ellman, Gasparin, Gilbert, Goese, Harrison, 

 Hogg, Hood, Howitt, Hubbard, Jacob, Lang, Lasteyrie, Leeuwenboek, Lichsten- 

 stein, Linnaeus, Low, Luccock, Maitland, Malte-Brun, McCulloch, Moffat, 

 McKenzie, Paget, Parkinson, Parry, Petri, Pictet, Powell, Reaumur, Rodolphi, 

 Sinclair, Slade, Southey, Spallanzani, Spooner, Stephens, Swaine, Trail, Trimmer, 

 Valasnieri, Vanderdonk, Von Thaer, Walz, Western, Willmer & Smith, Youatt, 

 Young, and some others. Of our domestic writers, I have aimed to consult all of 

 the most prominent ones. It is not necessary to enumerate them, extending, as the 

 list would, to hundreds. 



The examination of these writers, foreign and domestic, has been no recent under- 

 taking with me. For years, I have found It a source both of instruction and plea- 

 sure, to peruse their works. Where they have proposed any thing new to me, which 

 I thought promised favorable results, I have usually sought the first opportunity to 

 put their propositions to the experimentum crucis of actual trial. I haye often thus 

 learned valuable facts. But I have nearly or quite as often ascertained* that what 

 may be true of one breed, in one climate, or under one set of circumstances, is not 

 true when all or a part of these conditions are changed. The English and German 

 systems of management, for example, I regard as almost wholly inapplicable here, 

 on account of the entire different relation which the prices of land and labor beai 

 toward each other in those countries and our own. And I sometimes have had the 

 conviction forced upon me, that writers even of reputation have assumed positions 

 in relation to practical matters, which they must have derived from other sources 

 than direct personal experience. 



While I have carefully reviewed and collated the opinions of other writers on 

 doubtful practical points, I have in all instances, as will be seen in the following 

 pages, preferred the results of personal experience and observation, to adverse 

 authority, however eminent. Compilations, it seems to me, are sufficiently abun- 

 dant, and I have thought it better to give my own opinions, leaving them to stand or 

 fall, as they shall be found accurate or inaccurate. Where I have found it necessary 

 to rely on others for any fact, or have quoted their opinions, I have uniformly given 

 them credit. To my kind correspondents, particularly my Southern correspondents 

 many of whose communications are not published en account of their reluctance 



