PREFACE. 



That a work embracing perhaps all the topics of the 

 present treatise, has long been demanded by American 

 Wool-growers, cannot be denied. The English, and 

 other foreign works on the important subject of Sheep ' 

 Husbandry, notwithstanding the ability with which they 

 are written, are unadapted to our wants, chiefly because 

 the breeds of sheep and modes of management are, in the 

 main, so essentially different in our own country and 

 Great Britain. Something American, therefore, is need- 

 ed — a work which would tend to correct the many errors 

 and abuses of management, and enter into such minute 

 details connected therewith, as would teach the merest 

 novice his duties. 



With dany others, I have long been waiting with the 

 hope that some one having the necessary practical 

 knowledge, and in other respects eminently qualified, 

 would undertake the difficult task of supplying us with 

 such a treatise ; but no one having come forward, after 

 due consultation vrith some friends, on whose judgment I 

 could safely rely, I determined to attempt what, under 

 other circimistances, I could not have summoned the res- 

 olution, and I may add, temerity, to do. It is, therefore, 

 with no ordinary degree of apprehension that I appear be- 

 fore the public in the character of an author, an,d the 

 more especially of a work of this kind, having been obli- 

 ged, in a measure, to carve out my own way, and act the 

 " lone pioneer." 



Itwas my original intention to have limited the histor- 

 ical part to the prominent and most profitable breeds, but 

 so little is generally known of those peculiar to Asia and 

 Africa, as well as remote portions of Europe, it appeared 



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