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ADAPTATION TO THE CLIMATE AND SUBSISTENCE OF THE WEST AND SOUTH. 



In a country which is comparatively new, and in which stock-raising is 

 conducted on an extensive scale, housing in winter is necessarily expen- 

 sive and troublesome, and it is impracticable except with those animals 

 which are very valuable and very delicate. Hence the necessity that 

 sheep, which are generally regarded as of inferior importance, should be 

 capable of self-protection, as far as is possible. Indeed, it is doubtful 

 whether any breed of sheep which requires housing in winter can become 

 a generally popular and practically successful breed in the West and 

 South. Living at all times in the open air, their subsistence must be of 

 such a character that they can gather it at all times for themselves, or 

 which can be given them at but little expense or trouble. Climate and 

 subsistence are both known to have material influence even on the fleeces 

 of the sheep; and so much does the character of the food affect the qual- 

 ity of the wool, that the same individual, by a change of food, may be 

 made to produce, at different shearings, wool of widely varied quality and 

 value. Luxuriant and coarse vegetation, grown on limestone soils, is 

 more favorable to the growth of longer and coarser wool ; but this ten- 

 dency may be qualified by judicious crossing, and the growth of fine wool 

 in the West must be sustained by an occasional infusion of fresh blood 

 from the more congenial flocks of Andalusia, Saxony, or New England,. 

 and thus a superior article of medium wool may be produced. 



The "Improved Kentucky" sheep (that is the name by Avhieh they 

 have been long and widely known) have always faced the bleakest win- 

 ters and the hottest and driest summers without any protection, except 

 that which nature has given them, and yet they have been almost entirely 

 free from all disease, especially from the coughs which often, in winter, 

 affect sheep; and they have been equally free from the snuffies and foot- 

 rot, which have been so fatal to other breeds. In springs, winters and 

 summers of excessive rains, clothed to the knees and to the ears by a thick, 

 long, and impenetrable fleece, they bid defiance to the wind, rain, and 

 snow, and seem at all times to be comfortable and sprightly. In summer 

 they are changed from pasture to pasture, and devour almost every green 

 weed. In winter, short grass is all they require; and if that cannot be 

 afforded them, they will take their corn-fodder with the cattle, and thrive 

 well upon it, though at lambing time, like other sheep, they require a 

 more succulent diet. My stock sheep have never been fed with grain at 

 any time, and when in winter they have been admitted to a hay-stack, 

 they have seemed to prefer the corn-fodder. 



THEIR THRIFTY AND PROLIFIC CHARACTER, AND THEIR SIZE. 



In the month of August or September, in each year, any aged, inferior, 

 or declining ewes are taken from the flock ; and on being separated from 

 their lambs and put on good grass, they soon make excellent mutton. 



