130 SHEEP HUSBANDRY IN THE SOUTH. 



comparatively speaking, few flocks in the United States that preserve en- 

 tire the distinctive characteristics of any one breed, or that can lay claim tc 

 unmixed purity of blood." 



Native Sheep. — "Although this name is popularly applied to the com- 

 mon coarse-wooled sheep of the countiy, which existed here previoufily 

 to the importation of the improved breeds, there is, properly sjieaking, no 

 race of sheep ' native ' to North America. Mr. Livingston, in speaking 

 of a race as ' indigenous,' only quoted the language of another,* and his 

 infoiTnant wks either mistaken as to the fact, or misapprehended the teiin. 

 The only animal of the genus Oris Aries, originally inhabiting this coun- 

 try, is the Argali,t known to our entei-prising travelers and traders who 

 have penetrated to the Rocky Mountains, where the animal is found, as 

 the Big Horn.f Though the pelage of the Argali approximates but little 

 to the wool of the domestic sheep, they are, as is well known, considered 

 by naturalists to have belonged oiiginally to the same species ; and the 

 changes which have taken place in the form, covering, and habits of the 

 latter, are attributed to his domestication, and the care and skill of Man 

 during a long succession of years. 



" The common sheep of the United States were of foreign and mostly of 

 English origin. The writer of the volume on Sheep in the ' Farmer's Se- 

 ries,' [Mr. Youatt,] speaks of them as ' although somewhat differing in va- 

 rious districts, consisting chiefly of a coarse kind of Leicester, originally 

 of British breed.'H Others have seen, or fancied they saw, in some of 

 them, a strong resemblance to the South-Downs. Mr. Livingston was of 

 this number.§ But it is far more probable that they can claim a common 

 descent from no one stock. Our ancestors emigi'ated from different sec- 

 tions of the British Dominions, and some portion of them from, other parts 

 of Europe. They brought their implements of husbandry, and their do- 

 mestic animals, to fertilize the wilderness. Each, it would be natural to 

 suppose, made choice of the favorite breed of his own immediate district 

 to transport to the New World, and the admixture of these various races 

 formed the mongrel family now under consideration. Amid the perils of 

 war, and the incursion of beasts of prey, they were preserved with sedu- 

 lous care. As early as 1676, Mr. Edward Randolph, in a ' Narrative to 

 the Lords of the Privy Seal,' speaks of New-England as ' abounding with 

 sheep.' "tl 



Vanderdonk, writing in 1790, thus speaks of the sheep introduced from 

 Holland into New-Netherland (now New-York) by the Dutch emi- 

 grants : — 



" Sheep are also kept in the New-Netherlands, but not as many as in New-England, where 

 the weaving business is carried on, and where much more attention is paid lo tliera than by 

 the New-Netherlanders. The sheep, however, thrive well, and become fat enough. I have 

 seen mutton there so exceedingly fat that it was too luscious and offensive. The sneep breed 

 well and are healthy ; they find good pasture in summer, and good hay in winter; but the 

 flocks require to be guarded and tended on account of the wolves, for which purpose men 

 cannot be sriared. There is also a more important hindrance to the keeping of sheep, which 

 are chiefly cultivated for their wool. New-Netherland is a woody country throughout, being 

 almost evei-vwhere beset with trees, stumps and brushwood, wherein the sheep pasture., 

 ind by which they lose most of their wool. This is not apparent until they are sheared, 

 wnen the fleeces turn out very hght." 



*' The common sheep yielded a wool only suited to the coarsest fabrics, 

 averaging, in the hands of good farmers, from 3 to 3^ lbs of wool to the 



' Livingston's Fpsny on Pheep. pp. 5f>, 60. t Godmnn's American Natural Hi?tory. 



t The " WO' ly .-lui p " of ihe Kocky Mountains, the descripr.on of which is quoted t)y Mr Morrel, (Ameri- 

 can Shepherd, p 131,) from Capt. Bonneville, is a^oot. Jt will be found described in Godman's Natunu 

 fiigtory vol ii. p. 3-.;(i, et tvpra. 



a Vci on Sheep p 134. § Eaeay on Sheep, p 53. H Colonial papers of Massachuwitt*. 



