78 SHEEP HUSBANDRY IN THE SOUTH. 



to let them run out a part of the time and get such grass as they can pick, 

 while there is not enough to sustain them." But the reason for this given 

 by Mr. W., that " they eat much dirt, are liable to be poisoned and lose 

 their appetite for hay," is very far from being the coirect one. Green 

 grass always, in a gi'eat measure, deprives sheep of their appetite for dry 

 hay. The grass thus left standing loses its nutritive qualities, so that it 

 will but imperfectly sustain animals, and when the snow falls and covers 

 it, sheep not only cannot obtain it, but they are left without appetite for 

 other food. Open winters, /. e., winters without snow, are always particu- 

 larly fatal to sheep which are suffered to run on the pastures, in this 

 climate, and for the reasons above assigned. They sometimes appear to 

 be doing well enough up to toward the close of February ; but they are 

 imperceptibly losing condition and strength, and when the trying month 

 of March, with its stormy and fickle weather, sets in, they begin to drop 

 off, and all sorts of diseases — gi'ub in the head, " the distemper," etc. — are 

 assigned as the causes. 



It is in vain to attempt to shorten the foddering season north of latitude 

 40°, on this side of the Rocky Mountains, by seeking for any plant to con- 

 tinue its growth and thus produce green feed in lo'mter, unless in limited 

 districts, and on the margins of large bodies of water. No plant can 

 draw its nutriment from solidly frozen ground. 



Mr. Wight proposes burning over portions of the prairies at intervals, 

 to cause the vegetation to start afresh, and thus prolong the grazing sea- 

 son on the prairies. Mr. Flower makes the same suggestion. In some 

 localities, and under favorable circumstances, this might, temporarily, ac- 

 complish the desired object ; but as population increases, and buildings 

 and inclosures are erected, it would constantly lead to those unfortunate 

 accidents, which have already, I believe, led at least one of the Western 

 States to prohibit by severe penal enactments, the Setting fire to the dead 

 grass of the prairies. Besides, we have Mr. Wight's own authority for 

 stating that sheep actually extirpate iho&e of the prairie grasses which they 

 will feed on, so that burning over could not cause these to re-sprout the 

 same season or afterward. 



It requires but little knowledge of the habits of the sheep to know that 

 grasses rejected by it in summer, will not constitute a proper aliment for 

 it in winter, and that if confined to such food, it will not prosper. A few- 

 sheep with liberty to pick and waste, will live on very inferior herbage in 

 either summer or winter, (and hence the sanguine and eiToneous state- 

 ments put forth by owners of srnall flocks on the prairies,) but confine 

 flocks to the same food — flocks which are too numerous to be allowed the 

 privilege of selection and rejection in their food, and the disastrous conse- 

 quences will not be long in exhibiting themselves. 



In reviewing the preceding facts, the principal advantages of the prai- 

 ries for the production of wool seem to be narrowed down to two points : 

 the cheapness and fertility of the lands, with a contingent right inuring to 

 the settler to use, without paying for it, all the unappropriated public do- 

 main ! If we admit that the soil of the prairies is as well adapted to the 

 artificial gi-asses as that of New- York or New-England, (a point which, to 

 say the least of it, is doubtful, for experience has shown it to be other- 

 wise in Michigan and some other portions of the West,) the only peculiar 

 and exclusive advantages which the prairies have over the lands of the 

 old Middle and Eastern States, is their cheapness and fi-eedom from rent 

 where unsettled. Emigration is rapidly abridging the latter privilege, 

 however — more rapidly than can well be appreciated without a reference 

 to the statistics of the several new NorthTwestern States. And it will be 



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