116 SHEEP HUSBANDRY IN THE SOUTH. 



plains of tne North that you afterward find large flocks and herds, nnder the care of keepers 

 kej't close toirether ; for as they have no fences, they are under the monieiitiiry peril of mak 

 ing ravages on their neighbor's crops." 



Between Leipsic and Berlin, on the plains of Saxony, Mr. Howitt fir»t 

 saw flocks of sheep in the field, and he says : 



•' Oni! thing which surprises an Englishman is to see what wretched creatures are the 



•heep which produce the famous Saxony wool In fact, it is a prevailing idea that 



the leaner tlie sheep the finer the wool. It is the wool to which all the attention of the giow 

 er is devoted, and therefore, generally speaking, a more miserable assemblage of auimali 



than a flock of German sheep is not to be seen On the plahis they wander under tlie 



caic of a shepherd, and lor tlie most part on fallows and stubbles, to pick up odds and ends, 

 rather than to enjoy a regular pasture. You may see them penned on a blazing fallow, where 

 not a trace of vegetable matter is to be seen, for the greater part of a summer day, wliich in 



this climate is pretty much like being roasted alive For what purpose they are here, 



except to starve and melt them i^ito leanness, I never could discover The slieep, be- 

 sides being lean, are generally dreadfully lame with that pestilent complaint the foot-rot. and 

 their keepers, apparently, trouble themselves very litde about it." 



Mr. Howitt states that it is necessary to economize the land so closely, to 

 sustain the population, in some parts of Germany, that the peasants actual* 

 ly convey earth up steep hill-sides in baskets, and cover the rocks with it, 

 t J thus add to the tillable soil ! 



In reviewing the preceding facts, you are struck with no one which 

 would indicate particular natural advantagesfor sheep rearing in the States 

 of Gerinany, Prussia, and — with an exception presently to be named — 

 Austria. The climate of the North i§ humid, fickle and tempestuous ; that 

 of the middle cold with long winters. Neither possess any advantages 

 over our own Northern States — and in some respects are decidedly inferior 

 to them. This was the opinion of that eminent sheep-breeder and excel- 

 lent man, Henry D. Grove, of this State, who was a native of Prussian 

 Saxony, and who certainly would never be suspected by any one who 

 knew him personally, of any want of partiality for anything pertaining to 

 his Fatherland ! In his letter to Benton and Barry on wool-growing, &c. 

 he says : 



" Ten years' experience has fully satisfied me on this point. In some respects, we posseM 

 natural advantages over Germany." 



In what particulars he awarded the preference to the United States, his 

 letters and oral declarations to me, leave no uncertainty. It was both ii 

 soil and climate, and in instituting the comparison, he had his eye not on the 

 most favored sections of our country, but on the hills of Rensselaer County 

 in this State, where he resided. 



If in natural advantages we surpass Germany, how much more we do 

 in artificial ones, may be estimated from the preceding extracts from 

 Messrs. Jacob and Howitt, To these general remarks poi'tions of Hurga- 

 ry form an exception. In these, the climate is fine, the soil rich, and, the 

 feudal tenures remaining unabolished, the land is yet held in those large 

 estates so favorable to Sheep Husbandry. Prince Esterhazy, the former 

 Austrian Ambassador to England, says Mr. Paget,* owns an estate of some- 

 thingmore than 7,000 square miles, including 130 villages, 40 towns, and 34 

 castles. His sheep are said to amount to 3,000,000.1 Other nobles own flocks 

 of from ten to thirty thousand. The demi-savage Magyar serf, whose 

 labor costs nothing, whose principal garment is a sheep-skin, and whose 

 miserable and scanty food is more than half slDlen,| makes a most econom' 

 ical shepherd ! Hungary lacks facilities for internal communication, and 

 her convenience to the Mediterranean markets — excepting Turkey — soaa 



* Paset's Hungary and Transylvnnia. vol. i. p. 46. t YouAtt 



t iiee Paget's Hutigai y, &c., p. 13 to \S. 



