130 SHEEP HUSBANDRY IN THE SOUTH. 



plains of the North that you afterward find large flocks and herds, under the care of keepers,. 

 kept close together ; for as they have no fences, they are under the momentary peril of mak- 

 ing ravages on their neighbor's crops." 



Between Leipsic and Berlin, on the plains of Saxony, Mr. Howitt first 

 saw flocks of sheep in the field, and he says : 



" One thing which surprises an Englishman is to see what wretched creatures are the 



eheep which produce the famous Saxony wool In fact, it is a prevailing idea that 



the leaner the sheep the finer the wool. It is the wool to which all the attention of the grow- 

 er is devoted, and therefore, generally speaking, a more miserable assemblage of animals 



than a flock of German sheep is not to be seen On the plains they wander under the 



care of a shepherd, and for the most part on fallows and stubbles, to pick up odds and ends, 

 rather than to enjoy a regular pasture. You may see them penned on a blazing fallow, where 

 not a trace of vegetable matter is to be seen, for the greater part of a summer day, which in 



this climate is pretty much like being roasted alive For what purpose they are here, 



except to starve and melt them into leanness, I never could discover The sheep, be- 

 sides being lean, are generally dreadfully lame with that pestilent complaint the foot-rot. and 

 their keepers, apparently, trouble themselves very little about it." 



Mr. Howitt states that it is necessary to economize the land so closely, to> 

 sustain the population, in some parts of Germany, that the peasants actual^ 

 ly convey earth up steep hill-sides in baskets, and cover the rocks with it, 

 to thus add to the tillable soil ! 



In reviewing the preceding facts, you are struck with no one which 

 would indicate particular natural advantages for sheep rearing in the States. 

 of Germany, Prussia, and — with an exception presently to be named — 

 Austria. The climate of the North is humid, fickle and tempestuous ; that 

 of the middle cold with long winters. Neither possess any advantages 

 over our own Northern States — and in some respects are decidedly inferior 

 to them. This was the opinion of that eminent sheep-breeder and excel- 

 lent man, Henry D. Grove, of this State, who was a native of Prussian 

 Saxony, and who certainly would never be suspected by any one wha 

 knew him personally, of any want of paitiality for anything pertaining to 

 his Fatherland / In his letter to Benton and Barry on wool-growing, &c.^ 

 he says : 



"Ten years' experience has fully satisfied me on this point. In some respects, we possess 

 natural advantages over Germany." 



In what particulars he awarded the preference to the United States, his 

 letters and oral declarations to me, leave no uncertainty. It was both in 

 soil and climate, and in instituting the comparison, he had his eye not on the 

 most favored sections of our country, but on the hills of Rensselaer County 

 in this State, where he resided. 



If in natural advantages we surpass Germany, how much more we da 

 in artificial ones, may be estimated from the preceding extracts from 

 Messrs. Jacob and Howitt. To these general remarks portions of Hunga- 

 ry form an exception. In these, the climate is fine, the soil rich, and, the 

 feudal tenures remaining unabolished, the land is yet held in those large 

 estates so favorable to Sheep Husbandry. Prince Esterhazy, the former 

 Austrian Ambassador to England, says Mr. Paget,* owns an estate of some- 

 thingmore than 7,000 square miles, including 130 villages, 40 towns, and 34 

 castles. His sheep are said to amount to 3,000,000.t Other nobles own flocks 

 of from ten to thirty thousand. The demi-savage Magyar serf, whose 

 labor costs nothing, whose principal garment is a sheep-skin, and whose 

 miserable and scanty food is more than half stolen,^ makes a most econom- 

 ical shepherd ! Hungary lacks facilities for internal communication, and 

 her convenience to the Mediterranean markets — excepting Turkey — so as 



* Paget'e Hungary and Transylvanis. vol. i. pp. 46. tYouatt 



i See Pagefe Hungary, &c., p. 13 to 19. 

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