

REARING AND FEEDING OF ANIMALS. 359 



^reductive labour, the commercial prosperity, and the wealth 

 or opulence of various countries. Existing in such a diversity 

 of climate, the varieties of their form and clothing (fleeces) is 

 necessarily greatly varied. They are generally cultivated for 

 their wool or flesh; in some countries the United States for 

 instance for both. 



The history of the sheep is one of no little interest to the 

 naturalist. The earliest scripture records refer to the anti- 

 deluvian breed "ABEL brought the firstlings of his flock;" 

 and again, ABEL became "a keeper of sheep, and CAIN a tiller 

 of the ground. " There is no record to prove that sheep were 

 at this early period used for food, and this opinion is strength- 

 ened by the fact that all ancient history is uniform in asserting, 

 that, in the golden or antideluvian age, the use of animal food 

 by man was unknown; and we have no direct evidence in the 

 scriptures that this use of animal food by man, was divinely 

 sanctioned until after the deluge. When man, by his own 

 voluntary act, became an outcast from Paradise, the curse pro- 

 nounced upon him for his disobedience was "Cursed is the 

 ground for thy sake. In sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the 

 days of thy life, and thou shalt eat the kerb of the field in the 

 sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." But mark how differ- 

 ent is the language addressed to NOAH after the flood. "Every 

 moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you." \ 



At what period the grand improvement in the management 

 of the sheep the periodical separation of the wool from the 

 pelt the shearing was first introduced, is unknown. The 

 earliest and oldest process was to drive the flocks rapidly 

 through a very narrow passage, when by their pressure against 

 each other, the greater part of the fleece was loosened, or com- 

 pletely detached. The falling of the fleece was early observ- 

 ed, and when, before the invention of shearing, wool had 

 acquired a high value, a singular, but most inhuman method 

 was generally resorted to, in order to loosen the wool so that 

 it might be torn from the sheep nearly in one bulk. For this 

 purpose the poor creatures were confined for several days 

 without food, or until they were in a state of great debility, 



* The account of the posterity of CAIN, advances the history of the sheep 

 another and an important step. We read that "ADAH, the wife of LAMECH," 

 one of the descendants of CAIN, "bare JUBAL; he was the father of such as 

 dwell in tents and have cattle" or as it should have been rendered, "with 

 cattle." The reader will observe here the use, for the first time, of the word 

 cattle, which so frequently occurs in the after history of the Patriarchs. It is 

 pleasing to connect with a descendant of CAIN CAIN the fratricide and as a 

 proof that the curse did not rest forever upon his offspring, the first mention 

 of the domestication of other animals, almost as much connected as the sheep 

 with the subsistence and comfort of man. History of the Sheep. 



t Gen. iv. 2, 4 



