THE OLD GRAIN-GROWING STATES. 



577 



Yes. that is the festering sore that stands so much 

 in the '.vay of wise legislation, and mars so ma- 

 ny measures that prudence and forecast would 

 suggest for the great interests of the country — 

 especially the Agricultural interest on which so 

 many others live and prey. 



Virginia, for instance, instead of her 1,300,000 

 sheep, of " no particular breed," (a.s appears by 

 tlie last Census), might easily, and without di- 

 verting any of her capital, support an additional 

 number of sheep — say at least 700,000, making 

 'J,000.000 — at a cost to the flock-owners of not 

 three cents a pound, and even then have not 

 one-fifth as many per acre as New-York, which 

 carried more than 5,000,000 by the last accounts. 

 We feel warranted in saying, at an expense 

 of not more than three cents to the pound of 

 wool, keep them, for Mr. Coles, a Member of 

 Congress from that State, once assured us that 

 he carried a flock of two hundred through the 

 year, in good condition, at an expense of not ten 

 dollars a year for all tlie salable produnt or sta- 

 ples they consumed. The first and chief step 

 toward this extension of a plain, simple busi- 

 ness, that any one may understand if he will, 

 would be merely to retain for a year or two, the 

 natural increase of existing flocks, crossing them 

 where necessary, as before said, with rams of 

 the most desirable blood. 



True, says even,- landholder, I have much 

 waste land well adapted to affbrd the requisite 

 pasture for increased flocks, but the too proba- 

 ble result would be that scarcely could time 

 enough elapse for the increase of the flock to 

 the number proposed ; and the requisite inqui- 

 ries be made, and system adopted, for their sus- 

 tenance and management, and the sale of my 

 wool, when some gentleman's sporting-dog, or 

 some loafer's cur. not more thievish tlian his 

 ov^-ner, would break in and rain what he did not 

 kill — as a flock is sure to be ruined by the agi- 

 tation and fright of having a portion of it thus 

 destroyed — a fright which seems to leave on it 

 a mortal blight from which it never recovers. 



This increase of only 700,000 sheep in Vir- 

 ginia, (to which we refer in the way only of ex- 

 ample), supposing the clip to average three 

 pounds, which is less than even the small Sheep 

 of the Cheviot breed mentioned in the following 

 notes, and the price to be only fifteen cents per 

 pound, and here would be to her landholders an 

 augmented annual income of more than 8300,000 

 from wool alone, allowing nothing for the Sheep 

 — ^leaving them to pay expenses and keep up the 

 flock to the standard number. And this sum is 

 annually sacrificed to the State, owing in a great 

 measure to a groveling fear of losing votes ! 

 To impose the fines and penalties, which ought 

 to be five times the amount of tlie value of the 

 Sheep killed, would be, forsooili, incompatible 

 with " the larirest liberty !" 



(ie37K^.....3r 



The fine, we repeat, should not be limited to 

 anything like so little as the actual value of the 

 Sheep killed, because the damage to the owner 

 consists in the disorder, which falls like a male- 

 diction of some evil spirit on all that survive the 

 ravages of the dog ; and to the State it consists 

 in thousands being thus deterred from establish- 

 ing new or extending old flocks, who might oth- 

 erwise do it, with very little additional expense 

 for labor or food, on their present landed posses- 

 sions, and tlie immense tracts of unoccupied 

 lands in the Carolinas and Georgia — lands no%v 

 yielding absolutely nothing, not even the amount 

 of the taxes paid on them. 



Let it not be said that if flocks were thus ex- 

 tended wool and mutton would be of no value. 

 Mutton, we doubt not, might be smoked and cent 

 abroad, or made to constitute a part of the very 

 liberal ration allowed to the negroes in these 

 Slates (where the usual weekly allowance is now 

 not under three pounds of good bacon, or full 

 equivalents,) and the wool might be worked up 

 on the premises of large planters, very economi- 

 cally, in every view, as we believe, by one of 

 " Chase's Carding Machines," manufactured and 

 sold oc account of Mr. George Law of Balti- 

 more, as advertised on the cover of the April 

 Number of the Farmers' Library. 



By using this machine, they can make of their 

 refuse cotton the basis of a thread, which this 

 machine covers with coarse wool : or otherwise, 

 everyfarmerand planter may either exchange his 

 own wool for cloth, or have it woven on his own 

 account at small \vater power factories, suab as 

 it will elsewhere in this Number be seen are 

 now in operation in Marj-land, and such as, if 

 snflicient wool were grown in the surrounding 

 countPi-, would spring up spontaneously, a/» it 

 were, in e%-ery neighborhood, to consume the raw 

 material and supply the cloth. In this way 

 might everj- State, and every County in these o'd 

 grain-growing and plantation States, revive and 

 sing again, as in the early and virtuous days of 

 American Independence, the good old song, 



" I shear my own fleece and I wear it." 



Thus could they clothe their household, great or 

 8mall,from their present but unused resources, 

 instead of being fleeced and taxed by those 

 who have the sagacity to practice on the wise 

 maxim of selling as much, and buying as little as 

 you can, if you would enjoy the blessing — the 

 priceless blessing of real independence. 



The writer of these hasty observations remem- 

 bers to have once asked the late Nathaniel 

 Macos of North Carolina. whether there was any 

 law in his State restricting the number of dogs, 

 or otherwise protecting the owners of sheep from 

 their depredations ? '• No, Sir," said the venera- 

 ble Senator, somewhat impatienfJy. " nor traitld 

 I live in any State where there was an anti-do^ 



