158 SHEEP INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES 



skill and intelligence. Some general instruction, together with patience and perse-.; 

 verence, are alone requisite. The sheep of which I treat, in common with those long; 

 since familiarized to our seasons, are rarely liable to diseases or accidents when proper 

 care is taken of them. 



Under the influence of such impressions, I thought I could not perform a more es- 

 sential service to my country than to endeavor to impress on the minds of my com- 

 patriots a conviction that the New England and neighboring States are singularly 

 well calculated for raising and maintaining as valuable a race of sheep as any in the 

 world, without incurring any risk of their growing worse. More southern climates, 

 though equally inhabited and cultivated, might not be equally suitable for this object 

 on account of the immoderate heat. The wool of the best English sheep, in some 

 parts of the West Indies, is soon converted to a kind of hair. In the new-settled 

 districts of our northern and western Territories wolves must for some time be a 

 formidable enemy. On the contrary, in the before-mentioned States, not only the 

 exemption from the beasts and men accustomed to commit depredations on unguarded 

 fields and folds in some other places, but likewise the method of making inclosures, 

 so that the sheep may easily have a change of pastures in the summer, and the mode 

 of tilling the earth so that an abundance of grasses and roots may be produced for a 

 winter supply, appear to invite the husbandman to pay the most particular attention 

 to this most useful and profitable branch of business. No other cattle will multiply 

 so fast or with so little cost. The facility and certainty of making vast improve- 

 ments in a very few years, provided a patriotic and persevering spirit should pre- 

 vail, on account of the short period in which sheep of all descriptions arrive at ma- 

 turity, is therefore a consideration which ought not to be overlooked or slighted. 

 Although we have no national or public farms as in France, or grounds belonging to 

 great and rich personages as in England, which are destined to essays in breeding 

 sheep and cattle, or to experiments in useful branches of agriculture, yet we can have 

 recourse to the results of their experience in the statements which are published, and 

 I believe we have fewer prejudices to contend with in introducing improvements 

 than the cultivators of any other country. We should, however, be cautious in vary- 

 ing the practice in conformity to the difference of local circumstances. We have a 

 less number of hands for labor, and a greater extent of soil to be cultivated than 

 most of the nations from which we can receive information or examples. This, how- 

 ever, it is conceived, would not be unfavorable to the particular kind of improve- 

 ment in contemplation. 



To make the meliorating experiments with the Merinos which I imported as com- 

 plete as might be at the commencement, I have resolved to keep all the ewes together 

 on the same farm, in order that they may be properly taken care of, and that their de- 

 scendants may retain the original blood entire, until there shall be a sufficient increase 

 for dispensing and continuing the pure race by breeding separately from them. I 

 have concluded, in the mean time, to dispose of such proportion of the rams as can 

 be spared, to respectable farmers, whose names will be published hereafter, and 

 whose characters will be a pledge that a fair opportunity shall be afforded of pro- 

 ducing an improved race by them and American ewes. That rams have been let for 

 the season in England for from 200 to 1,000 guineas each, is a fact sufficiently known 

 to those who are acquainted with the history of agricultural proceedings in that 

 country, and demonstrates conclusively the wonderful passion which prevails for 

 bettering the breed. Several intelligent authors in Europe, who have 



treated of the more speedy and efficacious modes of improving wool, have stated 

 that, where the smallness of the original stock of Merinos prevents so rapid a prop- 

 agation of the pure race as could bo wished, a mixed breed may be produced by 

 Spanish rams and well-chosen owes of the country, whose descendants in the fourth 

 or fifth generation will yield fleeces nearly or quite as fine as the first quality of 

 those which are produced in Spain. In France the existing government is paying 

 the most zealous attention to this subject, with the hope of augmenting the quantity 



