APOLOGY OF THE PRAIRIES. 311 



upon pa^e 80, I shall touch li<Thtly upon those which appear to me to be pecu- 

 liar to the prairies, and ask if such others as I lind there, to wit: the cost of 

 improved and fenced farms ; the danger of diseases spreading: extensively among 

 unherded and wandering flocks ; the certainty of stray and disowned bucks caus- 

 ing "winter lambs," if allowed to run at large ; and the like, are not as appli- 

 cable to the sunny South as the rigid North. And here, passingly, I remark that 

 foul weeds, burs, Spanish needles, hoarhound and the like are rather more likely 

 to prosper in the Helds, and destroy the value of the wool of a region cultivated 

 by that "cheaper labor," than in a region like this. Any wool grower knows 

 the care and attention required to keep down these in a fertile region, whether 

 North or South. The objections on jjage 80, which are applicable to the prai- 

 ries alone, are the scarcity of timber and difficulty of procuring coal, and conse- 

 quent costliness of fencing-siufi' and fuel ; the thickness or compactness of the 

 settlements already made on this side of the Mississippi, and consequent limited 

 range ; and the greater extremes of heal and cold. 



The first two of these are deficient in fact, since even in the most favored lo- 

 cations timber will not coiTimand more than ten dollars per acre, and very rarely 

 can five be got, while I can point to hundreds of thousands of acres of prairie 

 land to be liad for one to two dollars per acre, with timber adjacent at a similar 

 price, and coal cropping out from blufls of half the streams entering the Illinois, 

 to be had for the quarrying, which is worth about two or three cents per bushel. 

 But, even where timber costs ten dollars per acre, a fence, suitable for protecting 

 sheep pastures efficiently, may be constructed for thirty-five cents per rod, and by 

 fencing large fields, 640 acres, (which should always be done here,) the cost of 

 fencing a sheep farm may be kept within fifty cents per acre. 



Theidea of mining by shafis in a prairie is most undoubtedly fallacious ; but 

 I do not perceive how Mr. Randall reconciles the two assertions of a scarcity of 

 fuel to an extent to affect the wants of a shepherd herding ; and of a farming 

 community already existing in the same country and being so dense as to limit 

 his range, or cause his flocks to be interfered with by those of his neighbors. |vlr. 

 Randall to the contrary notwithstanding, I beg to be permitted to assure you 

 such is not the case, in that tolerably extensive region lying between the eastern 

 boundary of Illinois and the western of Missouri, and extending as far south as 

 the Ohio River, and as far north as the British Possessions. And where Mr. R. 

 supposes a man and horse with a brace of dogs might herd one thousand sheep, 

 and have a little spare time, I find a boy of twelve years can successfully herd 

 two thousand head with a single dog and without the horse. 



As to the extremes of heat and cold, I do not think the case is fairly proven, 

 so far as sheep are concerned, since it is not so much the extremes as suddea 

 changes of temperature that affect them ; and it must be noticed that under any 

 circumstances the Tables introduced on this point by Mr. R. do not prove any- 

 thing Avhatpver, since all of the observations quoted, which he intends should 

 represent the temperature at the South, are taken on the seaboard, where the 

 ocean equalizes the temperature, and not in the interior, as is the case with those. 

 he intends should represent the temperaiure of the North. It is not on the sea- 

 board of the South that he advocates the production of wool. 



It is a matter of some surprise to me that Mr. R. should have admitted so 

 freely as he appears to do the present healthfulness of sheep with us generally, 

 and I do not perceive how he considers this to correspond with the opinion (ex- 

 pressed in Letter V., page 521) thai the coarseness and rankness of our grasses 

 unfit them for the growing of wool. He is evidently ignorant of the fact that the 

 upland grasses here are far finer than the clover or the timothy, and that many 

 of our most experienced wool-growers prefer the coarsest hay from the bottoms, 

 as being not only cheaper, but heartier and better than any other. He need be 

 under no apprehension on that score. 



The scarcity of water and the length of the winters are undoubtedly valid 

 objections so fiu as they go, and these I propose to consider in a future letter, 

 but the remarks upon llie mortality among sheep driven into this country, 

 which Mr. R. says " is usually attributed to over-driving, poisoning, &c.," but is 

 in reality caused by the temperature and climate, I consider another error. Had 

 Mr. R. seen, as many here have, lumps of mud removed from the lungs of this 

 class of sheep, and witnessed also the efi'ects of poisonous plants taken into the 



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