INTRODUCT ON IJ 



irould be tfieir ultimate limits — usually with one or more of the immediately pre* 

 ceding numbers in the hands of the printer, and consequently not under my inapoc- 

 tion. I have not therefore had that opportunity to proportion the space devoted ta 

 the sevcTal topics, avoid repetition, and correct errors, possessed by hiui who com* 

 pletea and revises, before any portion of his manuscript is rendered unalterable bj 

 fltereot) ping. 



Reliance on insufficient authority has in a very few instances led me into error*, 

 but fortunately, so far as discovered, they have been of trifling importance, and in 

 relation to matters of no especial moment. Those thought worthy of notice have 

 been corrected in subsequent parts of the body of the work. The causes I have 

 named, therefore, affect rather the literary character of the Letters, than their 

 Ijeneral accuracy. 



In stating important facts and conclusions, I have consulted such writers of repu- 

 tation a\3 were within my reach. Among the foreign ones who have prepared works 

 on Sheep Husbandry, or expressed important opinions on some of its separate 

 topics or facts, or who have alluded to the Sheep Husbandry of particular countries 

 or nations, reference has been had to the following, either by consulting their works, 

 as I havp in most instances been able to do — or by quotations from them found in 

 the works of other writers of reputation; — Anderson, Bakewell, Barnes, Barrow, 

 Bischoff, Blacklock, Bourgoing, Bright, Carr, Coventry, Culley, Cunningham, 

 D'Arboval, Darwin, Daubenton, Dick, Ellman, Gasparin, Gilbert, Goese, Harrison, 

 Hogg, Hood, Howitt, Hubbard, Jacob, Lang, Lasteyrie, Leeuwenhnek, Lichsten- 

 stein, Linnaeus, Low, Luccock, Maitland, Malte-Brun, McCuIloch, Moffat, 

 McKenzie, Paget, Parkinson, Parry, Petri, Pictet, Powell, Reaumur, Rodolphi, 

 Sinclair, Slade, Southey, Spallanzani, Spooner, Stephens, Swaine, Trail, Trimmer, 

 Valasn'.3ri, VanderJonk, Von That'r, Walz, Western, Willmer & Smith, Youatt, 

 YouuT, and some others. Of our domestic writers, I have aimed to consult «//of 

 the most prominent ones. It is not necessary to enumerate them, extending, as the 

 list would, to hundreds. 



The examination of these writers, foreign and domestic, has been no recent under- 

 taking with me. For years, I have found it a source both of instruction and plea- 

 sure, to peruse their works. Where they have proposed any thing new to me, which 

 I thought promised favorable results, I have usually sought the first opportunity to 

 put their propositions to the experimentum cruets of actual trial. I have often thus 

 learned valuable facts. But I have nearly or quite as ofiai ascertained that what 

 may be true of one breed, in one climate, or under one set of circumstances, is not 

 true when all or a part of these conditions are changed. The English and German 

 systems of management, for example, I regard as almost wholly inapplicable here, 

 on account of the entire different relation which the prices of land and labor beai 

 toward each other in those countries and our own. And I sometimes nave nad the 

 conviction forced upon me, that writers even of reputation have assumed positions 

 in relation to practical matters, which they must have derived from other sources 

 than direct personal experience. 



While I have carefully reviewed and collated the opinions of other writers o« 

 doubtful practical points, I have in all instances, as will be seen in the following 

 *«jes. preferred the result* of personal experience and observation, to adverse 

 A«xhor5l3', Dowever eminent. Compilations, it seems to me, are sufficiently abun- 

 daat, and I have thought it better to give my own opinions, leaving them to stand oi 

 €ill, as they shall be found accurate or inaccurate. Where I have found it necessary 

 to rely on ethers for any fact, or have quoted their opinions, I have uniformly given 

 them credit. To my kind correspondents, particularly my Southern correspondent* 

 — many of whose 'joranDunica'ions rire no< published rn account of their reluctaiiM 



