292 SHEEP HUSBANDRY IN THE SOUTH 



iheir own business. " and not "pay the wages of an interm« diate agent ' 

 But the advantages derived from selling the wool in sorted lots, have bees 

 found to far more than overbalance the one cent per pound paid to the 

 " agent" or Depot keeper, and the system is rapidly gaining favoi-. Many 

 of our most experienced wool growers in this State — men the most com- 

 petent to favorably dispose of their wool — have sent their wool to Messrs. 

 Blanchard and Peters, and I have yet to see or hear of the first person 

 who has been disappointed in the result. 



If wool Depots are beneficial in the North, where the agents of different 

 manufacturers, and " speculators," visit every man's barn to bid on his 

 wool — and among a class of growers, too, who, from long experience, are 

 familiar with the qualities and comparative values of the staple — ^liow 

 much more beneficial would rhey be to regions in which the growers are 

 so scattered that they are rarely visited by traveling agents — or if so, not 

 in numbers sufficient to produce that competition which would compel them 

 to offer the fair market value of the article : and whore, perhaps, in many 

 cases, the growers themselves have not sufficient experience to determine 

 the exact grade of their own clips, even supposing them correctly notified 

 from time to time from abroad, of the market value of the several grades 

 The Depot system, in my judgment, removes the great and only serious obsta- 

 cle to successful wool-groiving in the South. 



It is not necessary that Depots be established in the Southern States, tc 

 have those States reap the full benefit of the system. For the present, and 

 for some time to come, at least, the North will furnish the best Iwme mar- 

 ket for fine wools. The wool therefore must, until some changes take 

 place, come to the North before it is sold ; and the transportation must be 

 equally subtracted from the avails, whether the sale is effected at home or 

 at a Northern wool Depot. Indeed, it would be better to store it in a De- 

 pot at Kinderhook or Buffalo, than at Charleston or Nashville. And 

 tnis is for the reason that the two foi-mer are much nearer to, and can be 

 more speedily visited by the principal woolen manufactureis of the Uni- 

 ted States, than the latter. The New- York or New-England manufac- 

 turer would be little likely to send an agent to Charleston or Nashville, if 

 he could supply his wants equally cheaply (with the addition of cost of 

 transportation), from Buffalo, Kinderhook, or Springfield. And if supplied 

 any more cheaply at the former places (price of transportation excepted), 

 be it remembered, it would be so much unnecessarily taken out of the pocket 

 of the grower. 



Should the South at any future day find it more for her interest to ship 

 hiu- wools to Europe, the above considerations will cease to be valid. She 

 would then want Depots as much as now, for far more gain, proportiona- 

 l)ly, is made by sorting xoool for the foreign, than the American markets. 

 But in that event, the Depots would assume a different char<icter, and 

 they would be most appropriately located at the port whence the wools 

 were shipped. 



A CORRECTION.— MR. RUFFIN. 

 In the beo'inning of Letter VI., I made the following remark in relation 

 to Hon. Edmund Ruffin — " He seems to think lime, of itself, adequate to 

 the full and permanent amelioration of the tertiary soils." — This remark 

 was made on a somewhat too hasty inspection of some of Mr. Ruffin's po- 

 sitions in the Agricultural Survey of South Carolina. Since writing it, I 

 nave had the pleasure of reading for the first time Mr. R.'s highly valua- 

 ble work on Calcareous Manures, and find that I was in error in tne siat» 

 tnent above made. 



