INTRODUCTION. 



enemies to their health but the wolf and cur, on all the Southern zones. Iliil 

 whether the local climate and herbage of those different zones — the low, level, 

 Tertiaiy sands of the Atlantic plain — the granite hills of the middle, and the ele- 

 vated Paleozoic or Transition regions of the mountain zone — would be found to 

 agree with the more valuable breeds of sheep ; whether their wool would retain ita 

 qualities or degenerate in these several localities ; whether a greatly increased sup 

 ply of wool would find a remunerating price in market; whether the mountain 

 eould be converted into sheep-pastures, and wool produced on them without an 

 expense which would absorb all the profits; whether Sheep Husbandry could be 

 made a substitute for " resting," or expensive artificial manures, in restoring to the 

 cotton, tobacco, and grain lands of the middle and tide-water zones the fertility 

 withdrawn by tillage ; and various other important correlative questions were all 

 problems to him. And to add to the difliculties of forming a correct opinion, and 

 especially of instituting safe and satisfactory experiments, he was ignorant of all 

 the practical details and manipulations of Sheep Husbandry : he knew little of the 

 various breeds, and their respective adaptation to his wants. 



For information on the subject of practical Sheep Husbandry and breeds of sheep, 

 there are a multitude of European, and several American works, of great value. 

 But for the answers to the questions in the preceding paragraph, which involve the 

 particular bearings and adaptation of this husbandry, of the different breeds, etc., 

 to the agricultural circumstances and wants of the various regions of the South — 

 where was the inquirer to find the desired information 1 Some welKwritten letters, 

 embracing portions of these topics, have appeared from time to time in our agricul- 

 tural journals. They have been of great value in drawing attention to the subject. 

 But they have not usually occupied limits sufficient for the examination of more 

 than a single phase of the general subject, or they have been mere coup (Tails of 

 that subject, omitting all but a few important facts and considerations of a general 

 eharacter. They have, too, usually been replied to, or published contemporaneously 

 in the same or other agricultural journals, with contradictory statements — some- 

 times with crude and erroneous speculations— calculated to confuse or mislead the 

 inexperienced inquirer. Beyond these occasional Letters in the agricultural jour- 

 nals, nothing, so far as I am aware, has appeared on this subject. 



A practical farmer, I have bred nearly all the approved varieties of almost every 

 iind of domestic stock — of every kind commonly kept on Northern farms — and 

 have been familiar with the details of their management and husbandry. I have 

 owned flocks of sheep, and been more or less familiar with them, from my child- 

 hood ; and for the last fifteen years have made their economy, their habits, their 

 comparative profitableness with other kinds of stock, and the comparative value of 

 their breeds, matters of careful and constant observation and experiment. 



When Corresponding Secretary of the New York State Agricultural Society, a 

 few years since, the facts drawn out by me in an extensive correspondence with 

 eminent Southern agriculturists, united to what knowledge I had previously ob- 

 tained by reading and personal observation of the Southern States, led me to tii 

 impression that there were numerous considerations and natural circumstances 

 Btrongly indicating the expediency of introducing wool-growing extensively into 

 those States. But at that time, my attention, in common with that of many if not 

 most, of the Northern flock-masters, was turned towards the prairies of the North- 

 west, as a region capable of sweeping away all American competition in this branch 

 of husbandry. Glowing estimates and calculations had been predicated on very 

 partial experiments. The value of the natural grasses, the character of the winters 

 «nd general climate, and the general facilities of the prairies for wool-growing, were 

 then little understood here, and had been made the subject? of much favorable exag- 



