434 APPENDLX. 



the quality of wool. All agree that a cold climate is calculated 

 to produce a finer, softer, and more abundant covering for the 

 animal creation, than a hot one, and for that reason a lamb that is 

 dropped in May, or the fore part of June, will produce more, and 

 better, wool than one that comes in the fall or fore part of winter. 

 By allowing the male to go to the female in December, we have 

 the whole of the winter for the formation of the animal, and with 

 all the other parts every fibre of wool is formed, and the lamb is 

 fitted for a cold climate, with a fleece of the finest and warmest 

 kind. After the perfect fomiation and production of the animal, 

 the heat of our summers produces no change in the quality of the 

 wool, or, if any, it is so slight as to be wholly unperceived. 

 Sheep that are at all times kept in a perfectly healthy condition, 

 continue to produce wool equally fine, soft, and beautiful, year af- 

 ter year, till visited by old age, and then, like the hair of an aged 

 person, it becomes in some degree more harsh and rigid. Were 

 we to provide for the birth of lambs in December, gestation would 

 be going on during the heat of summer, and nature, true to her 

 work, would prepare the lamb with a hairy, coarse covering, 

 suited to a wami cliinate. The broken surface, the dry summers, 

 and steadily cold winters of New England, New Yojk, Pennsylva- 

 nia, seem admirably adapted to the perfect development of all the 

 valuable properties of the sheep ; and it is certainly true that the 

 offspring of the Spanish and Saxony sheep that have been judi- 

 ciously managed, and bred in this secrion of country, now produce 

 wool more open and free, and more elastic and delicately fine, 

 than the imported original stock. It is not known that any per- 

 son in this country has gone into a minute calcularion of the 

 greater or less increase of wool arising from different kinds of 

 food ; nor is it necessary, for Providence itself attends to this bu- 

 siness, and it will not lead the husbandman astray if he furnishes 

 his flock with a variety of food such as their appetites crave. The 

 disposition of sheep prompts them to range over a precipitous 

 country, where herbage is various and territory extensive. No 

 domestic animal feeds upon so many kinds of plants as the sheep, 

 ner does any so quickly pine by confinement to any one kind. 

 Peculiarity of pasture may have some effect upon the fleece, 

 making it finer or coarser, so far as it affects the general health 

 of the sheep, and no farther. The most perfect and valuable wool 

 that can be produced is from sheep that are neither over-fat nor 

 miserably lean, but in a perfectly healthy condition. The main 

 and almost entire reliance for the improvement of the wool of our 

 flocks is in judicious selection, season of breeding, patience, and 

 the shepherd's unceasing attention. By a long and undeviating 

 course in these practices, our best flocks may be made to yield 

 fleeces that will not suffer by a comparison with the finest the 

 world produces ; and thus the avaricious may gratify his desire, 

 and the patriotic be prouder of his country. 



During the inclemency of our winters sheep should be well 



