SHEEP DOGS. 589 



We agree with our correspondent: South Carolina, and every other Southern 

 State, require a dog law stringent enough to reduce the number of dogs to the 

 actual wants of the people. What should be the provisions of such a law we 

 cannot so well determine. The owner of a dog would be liable at Common 

 Law for the depredations comrailted by it. But the owners of many of them — 

 of the very ones which would be the most likely to go from home in quest of 

 food-^would not be pecuniarily responsible. So this remedy would amount to 

 nothing. 



In Col. Randall's Letters on Sheep Husbandry in the South, Vol. IL, p. 472, 

 the follov-'ing abstract is given of the dog laws of New-York : 



In New- York it is provided by law that every bitch over three months old shall be 

 taxed $2 ; eveiy additional one owned by the same inau $5 ; two dogs over six months old 

 $1 ; eveiy additional one $S. The avails of these taxes constitute a fund out of which Su- 

 pervisors of Counties are to pay for any slieeji slain by dogs whose owners are unknown. 



Any person may kill any dog •' which he shall see chasing, woiTying or wounding any 

 sheep," unless by direction of the owner of the sheep. 



The owner or possessor of any dog, on being notified "of any injury done by his dog to 

 any sheep, or his dog having chased or woiried any sheep," must within 48 hours kill his 

 dog, or forfeit $2 50, and the farther sum of $1 23 lor every 48 hours, unless " it shall satis- 

 factorily appear to the Court that it was not in the power of such owner or possessor to kill 

 such dog." (Revised Statutes of New-York, vol. i. chap, xx., title xvii.) 



It seems to us that the planter or farmer ought to have legal power to kill 

 any dog found in his fields, or lingering about his premises without his owner — ; 

 or to kill a strolling dog anywhere, unless wearing a collar with the master's 

 name on it. In the North, this is a privilege usually taken by sheep farmers, 

 without any legal enactments. A strolling dog not recognized, and not pursuing 

 his journey in the highway, or not crossing inclosed land in pursuit of game, 

 finds short shrift and a bullet. We see nothing wrong in this. Self-protection 

 demands it. It is difficult to detect curs killing sheep, and to identify them, as 

 their depredations usually take place in the night. It is difficult to shoot them 

 in the night or to trace them home. With a properly enforced taxation of dogs, 

 it might not be so necessary ; but before this is done, and until this is done, we 

 advise that the least lenity comporting with propriety, be shown to vagrant and 

 strolling curs. 



The most efficient protector of sheep by night and day, undoubtedly, is to be 

 found in some of the larger races of the sheep dog — those which will at once 

 seize upon and kill any dog which molests the flocks under their charge. We 

 have at various times alluded to these several races — and they will be found de- 

 scribed with considerable minuteness in Letter XVII. (in the present number of 

 this Journal) on Sheep Husbandry, with portraits of several of the varieties. — 

 The large Mexican sheep dog — descended from the Spanish — for a union of sa- 

 gacity, fidelity and power, has no superior. His charge are entirely safe from 

 curs, and even wolves. If a few of these could be purchased and sent home 

 by our victorious troops, they would be of incalculable advantage to the wool- 

 growers of our country. 



G. W. La Fayette has in training a pair of the shepherd's dog, such as is gen- 

 erally used and most esteemed in France, to be sent along with a couple of the 

 Pyrenean Wolf dog breed, to the Editor of The Farmers' Library, and destined 

 for the use of Col. Hampton, whose Hock affords the best mutton from the pas- 

 tures in February, without any extraordinary keep. His flock of several hun- 

 dred, we once heard him remark, had not eaten ten dollars' worth of grain in a^ 

 year. If the Southern agriculturist who has read the ample and vvell-digestc4 



(1109) 



