EAST OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 453 



VIRGINIA. 



At the begin, ing of this century Virginia possessed some of the best 

 wool-producing sheep of the United States, and there was a growing 

 interest in their further improvement. Some of the early importations 

 of the Merino sheep were secured from the Dupont, Humphreys, and 

 Livingston descent, and Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Gen. John 

 Mason, Gen. Thompson Mason, and many other prominent and patriotic 

 men, bought of the Jarvis importations and took pride in cultivating 

 and disseminating the sheep. At first the newspapers urged the adop- 

 tion of the Merino as a basis of manufactures and true independence. 

 The Richmond Inquirer of September 28, 1810, said : 



These will form a real acquisition of riches to this country, more precious than 

 mines of gold and silver, the diamonds of Golconda, or the gems from Samarcand. 

 It is the real Golden Fleece of which the ancients have woven such wonderful tales, 

 and those who bring them into this country may be considered as the real Argonauts 

 of America. Let us cherish these treasures. The legislature should take care to foster 

 them by laws, and the owner to furnish the proper food and preserve the breed from 

 adulteration. (1) The legislature should lay a tax on dogs. This tax, if necessary, 

 to be given a? a premium for wolves' scalps. Without such a shield the rearing of 

 sheep must be retarded in Virginia. Few will be willing to invest $400 or $500 in 

 an animal which may be torn from them in a night between the teeth of a dog. 



(2) A law should be in force a few years exempting them from sheriffs' executions. 



(3) Owners should take care to keep the blood pure, and to mark the full-blooded 

 rams. 



But the popularity of the sheep was limited ; it did not obtain a foot- 

 hold, a fact attributed by many to the writings of one of her purest 

 public men Col. John Taylor, of Caroline. Col. Taylor was a farmer 

 of more than forty years 7 experience, had served his State in the Senate 

 of the United States, and was universally beloved as a man of unblem- 

 ished integrity of character and a pure patriot. 



In 1808 and 1809, when Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Penn- 

 sylvania, Ohio, and other States were encouraging home manufactures 

 and the introduction of Merino sheep, when embargoes closed nearly all 

 the ports of the world, and the manufacturing spirit was rapidly rising 

 all over the Union, Col. Taylor published in the columns of a Virginia 

 paper a series of essays, sixty-four in number, which were collected in 

 1813 and published in one volume, and of which several editions were 

 printed. These essays were upon politics, slavery, labor, live stock, 

 fencing, and other subjects of the farm, and combining his long expe- 

 rience and extensive reading, were valuable, and produced much effect. 

 In the fourth edition Col. Taylor gave the motive which prompted the 

 preparation of the essays, which was " a conviction that the prosperity 

 of our country depended upon a competent share of agricultural and 

 political knowledge, and that an ignorance of either would defeat the 

 benefits naturally flowing from a proficiency in both." These essays 

 were professedly an effort to combine and treat together agriculture 

 and politics, " the primary causes of our wealth and liberty," both con- 



