EAST OF THE MlSSISSIPn EIVER. 457 



iiectioii with tliose of westeiii Pennsylvania and Ohio, to which they 

 were allied and from which they originated. 



The Saxon Merino made no impression upon the sheep husbandry of 

 eastern Virginia — was hardly known there, in fact, and from 1820 to 

 1845 fine- wool growing was almost entirely neglected. From 1840 to 

 1845 the subject attracted more attention than at any previous period 

 not only in Virginia but in other Southern States. There were at that 

 time thousands of acres of land that had been run out by the cultiva- 

 tion of tobacco years in succession, and there were other thousands of 

 mountain lands and unproductive tracts that could not be made to 

 yield any vegetable products but pasturage. Nor was this pasturage 

 of a kind to support large animals ; it suggested a small animal, the 

 sheep, and the growing of wool. The sheep answered the requirement 

 of the worn-out lands also, a fact not so apjjarent to the landowners 

 and planters of Virginia as it was to others who had observed the 

 utility of this animal in converting the useless products of worn out 

 land.into manure for its successful fertilization. Henry S. Eandall, of 

 l>rew York, had noticed the peculiar adaptability of some of the South- 

 ern lands for growing wool, and in a letter to the Secretary of the 

 Treasury in 1845, and in a series of letters published in the Virginia 

 Valley Farmer the same year, stated some of the general conclusions 

 at which he had arrived. These letters attracted much attention and 

 stimulated inquiry, and, in 1846, John S. Skinner, editor of the Monthly 

 Journal of Agriculture of If ew York, requested Mr. EandaU to prepare 

 a series of letters on sheep husbandry, and especially on sheep hus- 

 bandry in the South, for the Farmers' Library. Mr. Eandall prepared 

 the letters, which were addressed to Col. E. F. W. AUston, of Wacca- 

 maco Beach, near Georgetown, S. C, and they were published and had 

 extensive circulation and attentive consideration throughout the South, 

 and more especially in Virginia. He considered the grounds of oppo- 

 sition that had been urged or imagined against sheep husbandry in 

 the South, on the score of climate, deficiency of forage, want of an ade- 

 quate demand for wool, and other obstacles, and brought together a 

 mass of facts of great value. He discussed the great hilly region lying 

 back of the Atlantic Ocean and extending westward from the Blue 

 Eidge to the borders of the Ohio and southwest from the Pennsylvania 

 line to the borders of North Carolina with the grasses and other 

 natural pasturage conducive to the life and health of sheep, collated 

 the direct profits of raising sheep in less favored localities of the North, 

 argued the great value of the sheep as a renovator of worn-out land, 

 and presented a point of no mean importance, whether, independent of 

 all other considerations, and even if the staples furnished by sheep 

 husbandry proved no more profitable in direct returns on capital 

 invested than some of the present staples, it would not be better 

 economy, on the whole, for the South to produce the raw material 

 and manufacture domestic woolens, particularly for the apparel and 



