322 SHEEP HUSBANDRY IN THE SOUTH. 



Numbering and Registering. — This is not absolutely necessary for the 

 wool-grower, though it is, in many points of view, a vast convenience to 

 him, and leads to a degiee of system in his efforts after improvement, and 

 gives a definiteness and precision to the execution of his plans, otherwise 

 unattainable. But the breeder — he who makes it his business more par- 

 ticularly to raise choice animals to sell for breeding purposes — is unwor- 

 thy of the name, if he does not regularly number and register his sheep, 

 so that he can trace the descent of any ram or ewe, through any number 

 of generations. This is not merely to gratify an idle curiosity, or to fur- 

 nish a purchaser with a sounding pedigree. Every breeder is under the ne- 

 cessity of directly bi'eeding in-and-in, or of occasionally employing new 

 strains of blood. If the latter step is often resorted to, the hazard is in- 

 creased of changing the character of the flock.* If he numbers and regis- 

 ters his sheep, he can breed " closer,"! and consequently longer, without a 

 change, without the hazard of confusion or mistake. Where lialf a dozen, 

 or even three or four rams are used in the flock the same year, it would be 

 beyond tile power of any breeder, relying on his memory alone, to decide, 

 six or eight or ten years subsequently, which were the daughters, grand- 

 daughters, and great-grand-daughters of each. If the rams A and B be un- 

 related, A may be put to the daughters of B, and then B be put to the 

 produce, (?". c, his own grand-daughter, got by A,) without " close " breed- 

 ing — because they possess but onc-qv.arter of the same blood. Then the 

 great-grand-daughter may be again put to A, because she possesses but one- 

 quarter of las blood. As I remarked in my last Letter, with three strains 

 of blood to start with, the breeder may ring innumerable changes, without 

 ever trenching on that line which marks the boundaries of close breeding. 

 He who pretends that he can preserve such multiplied classifications in 

 his memory alone, is unworthy of the least confidence. 



There is another very important consideration. Numbering and regis- 

 tering enables the breeder to trace breeding effects definitely to their causes. 

 Suppose that he finds that an unusual number of his young ewes are 

 poor nurses — or exhibit some imperfection of form or wool. He can re- 

 move the present effect by throwing out the defective ones. But the undis- 

 covered cause may still remain in operation. It may be a particular ram, 

 or the result of interbreeding between such ram, and ewes of a certain 

 strain of blood. If this ram, oy perliaps others got by him, be permitted to 

 breed, or breed with a particular class of ewes, the evil creeps along in the 

 flock, its cause remaining imdiscovered. But if the breeder could fix the 

 precise pedigree of every sheep, from an accurately kept register, he 

 would soon ascertain what strains of blood, or the conjunction of what 

 strains, produced the evil. By the same means, he could as readily trace 

 the sources of particular excellence. 



The system of numbering invented by the celebrated Von Thaer is far 

 preferable to any other which I have seen.| It is as follows : || 



* A ram of a new strain of blood, thoua;li of prime quality, and apparently possessing the same charac- 

 teristics with the flock, does not always imerbreed well with the flock in all those minute particulars which 

 the breeder is bound to notice' though they might escape the eye of the ordinary flock-master. Every 

 breeder, therefore, who has a flock that suits him, is exceedingly averse to an infusion of new blood, and 

 resorts to it only as a matter of necessity. 



t That is, he can breed in-and-in somewhat. " Close" breeding is breeding between near afiimties, such 

 as between brother and sister, which are of the same blood, or between a father and a gi-and-daughter be- 

 gotten on a daughter, which would be three-fourths of the same blood, &c. 



t It will not cause half the mutilation of the system given in the American Shepherd — is simple, and 

 gives the age. which the former does not. Neither can this system of giving the age be ingi-afted on 

 that system of nimibering. 



II As furnished me by Mr. Grove, a number of years since, with this exception, that the point of the 

 rigiit ear cut square ofl^ he made to stand ibr 70U instead of 500, as I have placed it. I made this change, 

 as the notch and clip standing for 100 and 400, coming on the point of the same ear, there was no com- 

 bination to express 500. 

 (642) 



