[265] 



there is a natural reluctance to change from old ways and habits which 

 have been handed down from father to son; but more than all else, is the 

 want of adequate and permanent legislation to protect the sheep-grower 

 against his most deadly enemy, the dog. Against a prejudice and a feel- 

 ing the weapons of reason are powerless. People cannot be argued out of 

 them; they must outgrow them. But when this growth has once com- 

 menced it is generally rapid, and from all the information which we can 

 derive from the various counties in this division of the State, it has al- 

 ready proceeded so far that, but for the want of adequate legislation, our 

 people would largely embark in the business. 



THE DOG, 



more than any other one thing, is keeping East Tennessee poor. If, ac- 

 cording to the Spanish proverb, beneath the foot of the sheep is prosper- 

 ity and wealth, beneath that of the dog is decay and poverty. From data 

 furnished by the assessment rolls, we have in this division of the State at 

 least sixty thousand dogs. If before the tribunal of Reason and Common 

 Sense an indictment were preferred against these dogs as a public nui- 

 sance, such an array of charges could be made and sustained as would 

 insure a verdict of guilty, and with scarcely any palliating circumstances 

 for an appeal to the mercy of the court. It would be proved that the 

 food consumed by each dog would produce one hundred and fifty pounds 

 of pork, which would aggregate nine million pounds, worth, at the lowest 

 estimate, five hundred and forty thousand dollars. It would be shown 

 that the destruction of property by them annually averages but little less 

 than that produced by fire and flood. It would be shown that, in conse- 

 quence of their evil disposition, our formers are deterred from engaging 

 in the raising of sheep, by which a loss of revenue is caused to the people 

 and to the State of at least five millions of dollars annually. It would be 

 shown that large numbers of immigrants, with money in their purses and 

 brains in their heads, are prevented from settling among us and helping 

 to build up the country, from the fact that these dogs render it too hazard- 

 ous to embark in the only agricultural operation that offers a reasonable 

 prospect of profit. It is a crime against the dignity and welfare of the 

 State that such a nuisance should exist. 



THE PROFITS 



of sheep-husbandry, like those of every other business, will greatly depend 

 upon the skill and attention with which it is conducted. In estimating 

 them, three elements are to be considered the wool, the mutton, and the 

 manure. There are several ways of estimating these profits, all of which 

 are very approximately correct and whose results closely harmonize. We 

 will first compare them with those of corn and wheat upon our lands of 



