168 SHEEP HUSBANDRY IN THE SOUTH. 



comparatively speaking, few flocks in the United States that preserve en- 

 tire the distinctive characteristics of any one breed, or that can lay claim to 

 unmixed purity of blood." 



Native Sheep. — "Although this name is popularly applied to the com- 

 mon coarse-wooled sheep of the country, which existed here previously 

 to the importation of the improved breeds, there is, properly speaking, no 

 race of sheep ' native ' to Noith America. Mr. Livingston, in speaking 

 of a race as ' indigenous,' only quoted the language of another,* and his 

 informant was either mistaken as to the fact, or misapprehended the term. 

 The only animal of the genus Ovis Aries, originally inhabiting this coun- 

 try, is the Argali,t known to our enteiiarising travelers and traders who 

 have penetrated to the Rocky Mountains, where the animal is found, as 

 the Big Horn.t Though the pelage of the Argali approximates but little 

 to the wool of the domestic sheep, they are, as is well known, considered 

 by naturalists to have belonged originally to the same species ; and the 

 changes which have taken place in the form, covering, and habits of the 

 latter, are attributed to his domestication, and the care and skill of Man 

 during a long succession of years. 



" The common sheep of the United States were of foreign and mostly of 

 English origin. The ^viiter of the volume on Sheep in the * Farmer's Se- 

 ries,' [Mr. Youatt,] speaks of them as ' although somewhat differing in va- 

 rious districts, consisting chiefly of a coarse kind of Leicester, originally 

 of British breed.'|| Others have seen, or fancied' they saw, in some of 

 them, a strong resemblance to the South-Downs. Mr. Livingston was of 

 this number.§ But it is far more probable that they can claim a common 

 descent from no one stock. Our ancestors emigrated from different sec- 

 tions of the British Dominions, and some portion of them from other parts 

 of Europe. They brought their implements of husbandry, and their do- 

 mestic animals, to fertilize the wilderness. Each, it would be natui'al to 

 suppose, made choice of the favorite breed of his own immediate district 

 to transport to the New World, and the admixture of these various races 

 formed the mongrel family now under consideration. Amid the perils of 

 war, and the incursion of beasts of prey, they were j^reserved with sedu- 

 lous care. As early as 1676, IMr. Edward Randolph, in a ' Narrative to 

 the Lords of the Privy Seal,' speaks of New-England as ' abounding with 

 sheep.' "^ 



Vanderdonk, writing in 1790, thus speaks of the sheep introduced from 

 Holland into New-Netherland (now New-York) by the Dutch emi- 

 grants : — 



" Sheep are also kept in tlie New-Netherlands, but not as many as in New-England, where 

 the weavmg business is carried on, and where much more attention is paid to them than by 

 the Nevv-Netherlanders. The sheep, however, tln-ive well, and become fat enough. I have 

 seen mutton there so exceedingly fat that it was too luscious and offensive. The sheep breed 

 well and are healthy ; they find good pasture in summer, and good hay in winter ; 'but the 

 flocks require to be guarded and tended on accoimt of the wolves, for which purpose men 

 cannot he. spared. There is also a more important hindrance to the keeping of sheep, which 

 are chiefly cultivated for their wool. New-Netherland is a woody country throughout, being 

 almost everywhere beset with trees, stumps and Iirushwood, wherein the sheep pasture, 

 and by which they lose most of their wool. This is not apparent until they are sheared, 

 when the fleeces turn out very light." 



" The common sheep yielded a wool only suited to the coarsest fabrics,, 

 averaging, in the hands of good farmers, from 3 to 3^ lbs of wool to the 



* Livingston's Essay on Slieep, pp. 56, 60. t Godman's American Natural Histwy. 



% The " wooly sheep " o^' the Rocky Mountains, the description of which is quoted by Mr Morrel, (Ameri- 

 can .Shepherd, p 131,) from Capt. Bonneville, is a ^oa«. It will be found described in Godman's Natural 

 History, vol ii. p. 326, et supra. 



II Vol. on Sheep, p. 134. § Essay on Sheep, p. 53. H Colonial papers of Massachusetts. 



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