[31] 



CHAPTER III. 



THE ADAPTABILITY OF THE SOIL OF TENNESSEE TO SHEEP 

 HUSBANDRY. 



Probably DO section of the American Union presents so 

 many advantages for the successful raising of sheep as that 

 wide stretch of country embraced between the Alleghany 

 mountains on the east and the Mississippi river on the west, 

 and extending from the thirty- fourth to the forty-second 

 parallels of latitude. This includes the very heart of the 

 Mississippi Valley, and its diversification of surface, great 

 variety of soils, and genial climate ensure the success- 

 ful growth of all the more nutritious grasses. Within this 

 area the cold is not so severe during winter as to make the 

 care of sheep a source of great concern ; nor are the heats 

 of summer so extreme as to produce, after a few generations, 

 a degeneracy of the character of the fleece. It is well 

 known to naturalists that within the limits of hot climates 

 the wool often disappears from the whole body of the sheep 

 and is replaced by a hairy coating. According to some 

 scientists this is a case of unequal development, the hair 

 growing more rapidly than the wool, and crowding it out; 

 or it may be that nature, disdaining to work for no effect, 

 supplies the cooler coating of hair for the warmer one of 

 wool. In the heated valleys of the Codilleras, according to 

 the authority of Roulin, if the lambs are sheared as soon as 

 the wool has grown to a certain thickness, all goes on after- 

 wards as usual, but if not sheared a short shining hair like 

 that of the goat is produced ever afterward. 



Tennessee may be called the center of this vast sheep 

 producing area, and it certainly presents in its variety of 

 soils, surface configuration, and climatic elements, all the 

 combined advantages of the States surrounding it. This is 



