SHEEP HUSBANDRY IN TEXAS. S05 



SHF.EP HUSBANDRY IN TEXAS. 



BY H. S. RANDALL, LL.D., 

 Author of" Life of Thomas Jefferson;" Etiilor of Randall's •' Yoiiall on the Horse," etc., etc. 



Editors of Texas Almanac : In pursuance of your request, I proceed 

 to give you some of the results of my experience and investigations in re- 

 gard to wool-growing, and my views of the adaptation of this husbandry 

 to the climate, soil, and other existing conditions of Texas. 



Climate. — The best climate for the cheap production of wool, other 

 things being equal, obviously is that which furnishes the most abundant 

 and suitable pasturage during the greatest portion of the year. This, 

 speaking generally, is to be found in the Northern hemisphere, between 

 latitudes 30° and 40° on the eastern margin of each continent, and be- 

 tween about 38° and 48° on the western. The south half of this wool- 

 growing zone, where the other conditions besides climate are favorable, 

 excels the northern. 



North of the wool-growing zone, the growth of vegetation is suspend- 

 ed, and the nutritiveness of grasses destroyed by cold, during considera- 

 ble portions of the year ; and then sheep require more expensive dry 

 feed, suitable winter shelter, etc. South of the wool-growing zone, veg- 

 etation, where it flourishes, is too rank and tropical for the smaller rumin- 

 ating animals, and the heat too intense for those carrying so dense a 

 pelage as the tine-woolled sheep, • 



Local exceptions exist to the above classification, owing to a variety ot 

 causes; most prominent of wliich are altitude, the shelter of mountains 

 from nortliern and southern winds, the contiguity of large bodies of 

 water, etc. 



I have said, " other things being equal," the question will be immedi- 

 ately asked whether wool of the same variety of sheep grown in latitude 

 3J^ is as fine as that grown in latitude 40° or 45° I doubt whether it is. 

 Sheep transported from a climate of long winters to one of perennial, or 

 nearly perennial, pasturage, increase visibly in size, and their descendants 

 permanently become a larger variety. The constant supply of succulent 

 fooil produces more copious and uniform animal secretions than an inter- 

 rupted supply, or than an alternating supply of green and dry food. In 

 theory, we should expect the same cans.^s to affet-t the fleece as well as 

 the carcass. They do visibly increase the length of the staple. The in- 

 crease of its diameter (admitting that it does ini-,rease) during over twenty 

 years of breeding — about as far as my personal olaservations have extend- 

 on that point — is not, I think, percL'ptible to the naked eye. But be it; 

 greater or smaller, it is more than compensated for by the increased soft- 

 ness and evenness of wools gi-own in warm and more uniform climates, 

 .ind on more uniforra'y succulent nutriment. I must be content to state 

 this as a well-established practical f ict. I have not room to array author- 

 ities on every point. 



Soil. — It wouM present a very tangible, and by no means a bad tent 

 of the proper soils for wool-growing, to say that they are those which 

 produce, or which can be made to produce, the most cont.nuous supply 

 of fine sweet grasses. A marshy soil, a soil, containing so great an excess 

 of clay as to poach into murl, and remain long wet after rains, a low, 

 lankly, rich river bottom alluvion and especially such an alluvion, if annu- 

 ally rc-pl-nished by slimy .deposits of decaying vegetable matter, all inju 



