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grass and get chilled, their fleece being so long their carcass does not 

 "dry out." 



In answer to your question as to the number of sheep killed by dogs, I 

 answer that I believe one-fifth are annually killed or maimed by dogs in 

 this vicinity. This is the great barrier to the profitable raising of sheep, 

 and as our wise solons love the dog more than the sheep, and as our pres- 

 ent law is wholly insufficient to give the owner of the sheep any protec- 

 tion, I see but two ways to remedy the evil. 1. To make it a rule to kill 

 every straggling dog found on the premises 2. To make the land-owners 

 responsible for all sheep killed by dogs that are around or kept by those 

 in their employ or living on their land. I think we would not then, as 

 now, have from two to five worthless curs to every freedman or tenant. 



SHEEP-HUSBANDRY IN EAST TENNESSEE. 



BY J. W. F. FOSTER, LL D. 



The permanently remunerative industries of every country will be de- 

 termined by its physical peculiarities of soil, climate, and topography. 

 Governmental interference and other temporary circumstances may, for a 

 time, turn them into unnatural channels, but ultimately they will assume 

 or revert to those channels which nature has pointed out. Of this truth 

 East Tennessee is a notable illustration. The unwise devotion of the 

 Gulf States to the almost exclusive production of cotton created a near 

 and profitable market for our cereals, and to supply it their production 

 was stimulated to the utmost. Our devotion to grain was as exclusive 

 and as unwise as was their devotion to cotton. As a consequence, after 

 half a century of uninterrupted grain-growing, we have reached the point 

 that, away from the river bottoms, few farms are profitably productive, 

 and large numbers are utterly exhausted. The lands and their owners 

 are gradually growing poorer. And so they will continue until a radical 

 change is introduced into our system of husbandry. It is not a matter of 

 choice, but one of necessity. The character of this needed change is 



