SHEEP HUSBANDRY IN THE SOUTH. 81 



sheep. True, these diseases have not yet visited, so far I am avi^are, the 

 Western States. The scab is, in fact, but little known at present in any 

 part of the United States. It may at any time, however, reappear.* The 

 hoof-ail, after the fuiy of its first onset is over, assumes a milder fonn — 

 one which does not lead to death, if remedies are applied but once or 

 twice during a season — and for this reason, probably, it is allowed to 

 linger in many flocks in the sheep-giowing regions of the U. S. It is a 

 strictly contagious disease, and one animal having it would rapidly innoc- 

 late, in the hot weather of summer, by itself and others receiving the dis- 

 ease from it, one or five hundred thousand sheep having access to each 

 other. A few years since it was a stranger to this region. Like the small- 

 pox when unchecked by vaccination, or any other contagious malady, it 

 gradually progresses from neighborhood to neighborhood — from State to 

 State. Good fences, confinement to the farm, and a rigorous system of 

 exclusion of all strange sheep, may and do save many flocks from its vis- 

 itation, but accidents and acts of carelessness are constantly occurring-— 

 and so long as they continue to occur, this malady will continue its on- 

 ward march. I consider it just as certain that it will visit and sweep over 

 the North-western States, as I do that flocks are scattered along between 

 those States and the present seat of the disease. And when it does visit 

 them, if it finds any great flocks congregated on the prairies, not in a situ- 

 ation to be immediately divided into small flocks, I venture to predict that, 

 with all the care and attention which the sheep will receive, the miserable 

 animals, eaten while yet alive by maggots — and festering in loathsome 

 rottenness, will perish in multitudes — by whole flocks.t 



Another objection to pasturing in common, would arise in the difiiculty, 

 if not impracticability, of estabhshing and enforcing an equitable system 

 of joint occupancy, over or around a large prairie, so as to compel each 

 farmer to regulate the number of his flocks and herds by the amount of cul- 

 tivated pasture possessed by him. 



But if we concede all the preceding difficulties to be removable, or even 

 removed ; if we suppose the great north-western plains to be amply sup- 

 plied with materials for building, fences, and fuel — there are two other dif- 

 ficulties in the way of their becoming the best class of sheep-walks, which, 

 from their nature are fixed, and, in the main, unchangeable. I allude to 

 the scarcity ofivatcr, and the climate. 



On the " dry and rolling prairies " — those claimed to possess the gi-eatest 

 advantages for Sheep Husbandry — running water is scarce, frequently ex- 

 tremely so. The occasional streams are shallow and sluggish. Washing 

 wool on the back of the sheep, conduces, I think, to the health of the ani- 

 mal. It causes the sheep to shear much more easily — brings the wool into 

 a better mai-ketable condition, and diminishes transportation. Streams of 

 considerable depth and rapidity (where, what is better, falling sheets of wa- 

 ter over mill dams, &c., cannot be found), are almost indispensable to an 

 effectual performance of this process. Sheep, also, in many periods of 

 weather, require water for drink. When they are confined to dry feed, it 

 is indispensable, in the absence of that snow which is often, in the Eastern 

 States, made a substitute for water. Neither are attainable during consid- 

 erable periods each winter, on the prairies, without resort to a pump — a 

 sorry — and, (including the time of working it, when large flocks are to be 

 watered), an expensive and troublesome substitute for running water. 



Fin ally, the climate of the Western and North-western States is more 



* Since writing the above, I hnve found, to my ultnr surprise, that this disease is within three miles of 

 my own farm, in a flock driven into the country last full. 

 t A history of this disease and its gloomy diagnosis, when neglected, will be given in a subsequent 



(177) 6» 



