80 SHEEP HUSBANDRY IN THE SOUTH. 



require ye«c<?s to protect them from animals, until they attained a consider- 

 able size ; and it is exceedingly questionable whether any good hedge- 

 plant can be found, which is capable of resisting the rigorous and fickle 

 climate of the North-western States. The different thorns, and other plants 

 used in Englund, have generally failed in all the Northern States. 



Timber may be groum, both for fuel, houses and fences, by the proper 

 planting, cultivation and protection of suitable trees — but the expense and 

 delay attending this course would raise the prairies to, or above the price 

 of New-York and New-England sheep lands. 



It has been claimed that the shepherd system will render fences unne- 

 cessary, to any but a very limited extent, on the prairies. Now, while there 

 is but here and there a settler on the margins of some of these great plains, 

 and while a flock of sheep can constantly seek new pasturage, as the old 

 fails, over a boundless range, without encountering another man's flock, 

 sheep require so little looking after that the shepherd system is entirely 

 feasible and economical, notwithstanding the high price of labor. Under 

 such circumstances, one man, provided with a horse and a brace of dogs, 

 can perhaps give the necessary attention to 1,000 sheep, and have some 

 time for other occupations. But this state of things, terminated already on 

 most of the prairies this side of the Mississippi, will soon be unknown 

 even on those in the teri'itories bordering on the Missouri and its west- 

 ern tributaries. When wool-growers become to any degree numerous on 

 the borders of the prairies, (as they certainly soon will, if these regions do 

 possess any peculiar advantages for this branch of husbandry,) how are 

 sheep to be kept separate, without that multitude of shepherds which the 

 same services require in Spain, Germany, or Australia] — and whose labor 

 and subsistence* would cost more, during a series of years, than the fences 

 in regions where wood and stone are plenty. 



if the sheep are not kept separate — if allowed to run promiscuously to- 

 gether, how could the property of each holder be separated out of the vast 

 general flock on a prairie five, ten or fifteen miles in mean diameter, for the 

 purposes of slaughter, sale, washing, shearing, folding, or any other inci- 

 dent of their husbandry? What protection would there be against whole- 

 sale theft, when no man could count his scattered flock 1 What would 

 prevent promiscuous interbreeding — and what object would it be, there- 

 fore, to attempt to procure choice breeds, or improve those already pos- 

 sessed] What security would there be against those vagabond rams 

 which the carelessness of some individual is always sure to let loose on 

 a neighborhood, to beget lambs on every poorly-fenced farm, to perish in 

 the storms of February and March It Finally, how could contagious 

 and — unless promptly checked — highly malignant and fatal diseases, like 

 the scab and hoof-ail, be met with the proper vigor, and treated with the 

 necessary skill and care, among a multitude of holders scattered over miles 

 of surface ; and supposing all the necessary vigor, skill and care brought 

 into action, what would they all avail where it was impossible to sepa- 

 rate the healthy from the diseased — the cured from the sick 1 \ Let either 

 of these diseases break out among a flock of ten thousand sheep, running 

 together without inclosures, and any one familiar with their diagnosis and 

 treatment, knows that if it were possible to drive them from the flock — 

 which is extremely doubtful — it would cost far more than the value of the 



* Costing four or perhaps six times more in this than in the former countries. 



t It i'' fpiestionable whijther in a flock running in common on a prairie, one ewe in ten would escape 

 untitnily impregnation. 



\ Both of these diseases are susceptible of being commimicated from a diseased sheep to one but 

 ri'ceiiily cured of them; consequently, separation is the only safe and economical method, in large flocks, 

 to prevent constant reinoculation. 

 (176) 



