SHEEP HUSBANDRY IN THE SOtTiH. 71 



80 little experience in the premises, in our own country, let us turn to that 

 of the first agricultural nation of the Old World. There is no foreign na- 

 tion where so high a degree of intelligence is brought to bear on farming 

 operations where cause and effect are so carefully studied and accurately 

 noted as in England. This care and accuracy are indispensably neces- 

 sary in a country where high rent and heavy taxation render good farming 

 or bankruptcy unavoidable counter-alternations to the agriculturist. Pre- 

 vailing conclusions among such a class of agriculturists undisputed con- 

 clusions, too are assuredly entitled to great respect, and may almost be 

 regarded as settled facts. Now the farmers of England are perfectly fa 

 miliar with every kind of manure accessible to our Southern farmers, un- 

 less it be swamp mud and cotton seed. Lime, for example, is plentiful 

 and cheap, and is much used in Agriculture all over the kingdom. If 

 either this, or any of the manures of commerce, were considered, of them- 

 selves, economical fertilizers of the poor, sandy or light upland soils of 

 England, there is no country in the world where they are more plentiful, 

 and, when the use of the soil and the price of products are taken into con- 

 sideration, more cheap. 



What the settled conclusions of the English farmers are, in relation to 

 the profitable amelioration of those soils, will be seen from the following 

 undisputed testimony of some of the most eminent and respectable of them, 

 taken before the Committee of the House of Lords, charged with the in- 

 quiry into the state of the wool trade, &c. in Great Britain, in 1828, from 

 which I have so freely quoted in preceding Letters. 



Mr. WILJ.IAM FINKNEY, Salisbury Plain: Land such as I occupy could not be main 

 tained without the aid of sheep. . . . The sheep are our principal dependence for suj> 

 porting our crops ; indeed, I could not occupy my farm without my flock. 



Mr."" JOHN ELLMAN, Jr., Sussex : I do not consider it possible for the light lands upon 

 the Downs to be kept in cultivation without flocks. I could not keep the farm I now hold 

 without sheep. . . On the South Downs the wool must be grown, let the price foe 

 what it will. 



Mi . FRANCIS HALE, Alringham, Suffolk : The description of land I occupy could not be 

 kept in cultivation without the aid of sheep. 



Mr. HENRY KING, Chilmark, Wiltshire : The size of my farm is about 4.000 acres. I 

 clip annually about G,500 South-Down sheep. . . . Such lands as I occupy cannot be 

 kept in cultivation without the aid of sheep. 



Mr. JOHN WOOLLEDGE, near Bury St. Edmunds, Sriffolk : An estate near the aboyjj 

 place contains 8,890 acres, let to tenants, and consists principally of poor sandy and gravelly 

 land, the produce of which in grain is very precarious, amounting in dry summers to little 

 or nothing. The occupiers, therefore, depend almost entirely on their flocks of sheep for the 

 payment of their rents and the employment and support of the population. ... I am 

 of opinion that two-thirds of the counties of Suffolk and Norfolk may be comprehended in 

 the sheep districts, and that they produce two pounds and a half of wool, and three-fourths 

 of a lamb, to the acre, upon an average. . . . The produce of the land depends materi- 

 ally upon the folding system ; there is not sufficient straw for manure without the assistance 

 of sheep. 



Mr. WILLIAM ILOTT, Alley Milton, Dorsetshire : I calculate the annual growth of wooJ 

 in Dorsetshire at 10,000 pack's of 246 Ibs. each. It is estimated . . . that 800,000 sheep, or 

 one sheep and one-seventh per acre, . . . are kept in this county. A considerable part of 

 the county of Dorset is composed of light lands, and can only be kept in tillage by the aid 

 of sheep. 



C. C. WESTERN, Esq. : It is utterly impossible that the Down Districts can be cultivate^ 

 to advantage without sheep. We never fold our Merino or other sheep ; the land is too wet. 



LORD NAPIER : If we had not sheep upon our lands (the highlands of Scotland), it would 

 become the habitation of foxes and snipes, and return to waste ; it would produce nothing 

 but grouse and wild game of different sorts. 



Is it asked, Why are sheep preferred to horned cattle ] Many of the 

 reasons are given in my preceding Letter. Then, again, the scanty and 

 short pasturage of light lands, on which sheep will thrive, will not afford 

 sufficient " bite" (as it is provincially termed in the Northern States) to 



