PREFACE. 



less animal itself — going so far in his animosity to it, and to all en- 

 couragement of the great industry -which it was formed to subserve, 

 as to declare, that he would at any time go out of his way " to kick a 

 theep /" Nor would it be unreasonable to apprehend that these im- 

 pressions against the policy and profit of sheep-breeding, as an import- 

 ant object of attention for the Southern land-holder, have taken root 

 the more kindly in the minds of a people unaccustomed, if not na- 

 turally averse to that careful and minute attention which the successful 

 prosecution of this business demands — a people whose sons, it may be 

 feared, still find it easier, if not more commendable, to follow in the 

 venerated footsteps of their sires, than to encounter for themselves the 

 labor of investigation, and the trouble (together with some expense) 

 of new arrangements incident to every new employment of labor and 

 capital. The general impression, in fact, is, (the reader will judge 

 how far it is just,) that cultivators of the soil everywhere are, of all 

 classes, the least apt to embark in any new enterprise, however pro- 

 mising. They talk and talk about it, but rarely go about ; and per- 

 haps it may be better that it should be so ; yet it is well to remember 

 that precipitancy is one thing, and torpor quite another ! We once 

 knew a- farmer (so called) in Calvert county, who, being told, as he sat 

 toasting himself in the chimney corner on a cold winter's night, that 

 the house was on fire ! without moving from his seat, answered, " call 

 the people !" 



In opposition to all that has been urged or imagined against Sheep 

 Husbandry in the South, on the score either of ill-adapted climate, 

 deficiency of suitable forage, want of adequate demand for wool, ot 

 other obstacles, the whole subject has been so admirably and thoroughly 

 canvassed in the work here ofi'ered, that further argument would be 

 superfluous ; otherwise we might oppose to the hitherto prevailing be- 

 lief, if not prejudice, the experience of some, on a limited scale, and 

 the well-settled opinion of yet many more among the most enlightened 

 of our acquaintances in that region — gentlemen uniting ample oppor- 

 ••unities with close habits of observation on all questions of rural 

 economy, and who have not hesitated to express the confident belief, 

 that profitable and interesting as has been the growing of cattle in 

 western Virginia, an equal amount of capital and attention, devoted 

 to sheep and wool growing in the same section of countr}'^, would be 

 yet more remunerating. Looking for reliable information yet further 

 south, and back to a period more remote, even anterior to our dccla' 

 ration of independence, it may not be out of place to quote an evi- 

 dently careful and intelligent author of a work on the climate and 

 products of each of the then English colonies. Speaking of Georgia, 

 and her well-ascertained adaptation to the growth of silk, the vine, 

 the olive, mr.dder and wool, he remarks: "Wool, we [England] take 



