10 INTRODUCTION. 



locality within the United States ; all the necessary anatomical figured, with tho9« 

 of the less known insect and parasitic enemies of the sheep ; and finally, reprusen* 

 tations of every implement, fixture, or process employed in Sheep Husbandry 

 where I thought they would convey important information — and particularly new 

 information — more clearly than it could be done by words. Many of toe lattoi 

 class of illustrations have never before been, so far as I am aware, attem,)led; and, 

 representing as they do the results of years of inquiry and experiment, I trust they 

 may prove of service to beginners — particularly in regions where Sheep Husbandry 

 has been hitherto little known. 



The Letters were begun and concluded exclusively as a " labor of love." To 

 possess the consciousness that even a limited portion of my fellow-men have been 

 benefited by my labors, would be all, and the noblest, recompense to which I could 

 aspire. Nor do I feel, that in attempting to benefit the agriculturists of one section 

 of our country, by urging them to appropriate a branch of industry now giving sub- 

 sistence to those of another section, I am seeking the good of the former at the 

 expense of the latter. Every region has natural advantages, or those resulting from 

 the natural course of events, for different branches of industry. A right to these 

 advantages enures from a right to the soil ; and the former is just as natural and 

 sacred a right as the latter. To attempt to wrest tliem from the holder by legisla- 

 tion, is oppressive; to withhold from him any knowledge necessary to the enjoy- 

 ment of them, is unfraternal and unmanly. If Virginia can grow wool, orany othei 

 staple, more cheaply than New York, let her do it. She will only force New York 

 to fall back on the production of some other staple, or to adopt some other branch 

 of industry. And why not 1 Why should there not be a division of production, 

 where it is called for by natural circumstances, at least within the limits of a com-/ 

 mon nation ? It is doubtless well for every region, whether extensive or limitdl, 

 to produce its own necessaries of life to the greatest economical extent. But an 

 attempt to force Nature against her manifest capabilities, for the sake of attaining a 

 fancied local independence, is to inflict a real evil, in the hope of attaining an ima- 

 ginary good. History is full of instances where the prosperity of large masses of 

 individuals, and even whole nations, has been crippled, in futile efforts to upbuild 

 this or that branch of industry,'in spite of natural obstacles, or against the compe- 

 tition of regions possessing greater natural advantages. Among the foolish, selfish, 

 and even iniquitous legislation of past ages, there has been none perhaps productive 

 of more real mischief to human industry than the intermeddling enactments of go- 

 vernments, ostensibly designed for its benefit. Masses of men, because divided by 

 a rivulet, speaking a different language, or owning the sway of different potentates, 

 have aspired to that physical independence of each other, and of the whole world, 

 which the God of nature rendered economically, if not absolutely impossible. The 

 vexatious restrictions on trade and commerce imposed in pursuit of this object by 

 one government, were met by retaliatory ones by others, until international com- 

 mercial legislation became a confused labyrinth of enactments — their absurdity only 

 equaled by their mischievousness. And like the elephants formerly used by bar- 

 oarian nations in battle, they nearly as often trampled down their friends as their 

 enemies. The era of these things is rapidly passing away. That patriotism which 

 includes only a province or State, among one common people, is beginning to be 

 recognised as narrow and sordid : nay, among intelligent men, that philanthropy is 

 beginning to be thought meagre and unexpansive which stops even at the boundarief 

 of Nations. 



In preparing the following Letters, I have labored under disadvantages insepara- 

 ble from the circumstances under which they have been prepared. I have written 

 them from month to month, amid the hurry of other pursuits, with linle idea of what 



