THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



281 



tened to the shepherd's wonderful story of 

 the sagacity of his favorite dog, — more 

 pleasing than fairy tale, or even shepherd's 

 lute. And yet these scenes have left their 

 impress. The shepherd with his dog qui- 

 etly dozing by his side, and the flock peace- 

 fully grazing or listlessly reposing on the 

 green, is to us the brightest, most beauti- 

 ful picture of rural life. It is a picture of 

 peace and contentment, and affection. — 

 When the interest of the flock requires it, 

 the shepherd makes known his wishes, and 

 the dog is ever delighted to obey — ever 

 ready to do his work with zeal and fidelity, 

 and when done, lays himself down with 

 evident and well expressed satisfaction, at 

 his master's feet. The sheep obey the dog 

 almost as readily as the dog obeys the 

 shepherd, and seem to look to him as a pro- 

 tector. The shepherd loves his dog and 

 his sheep, and the dog is equally attached 

 to his master and his flock. The Almighty 

 has chosen this beautiful scene to illustrate 

 his love for his creatures, and his care over 

 them. Modern customs and modern im- 

 provements may, in some respects, have 

 changed the shepherd's life; but in our 

 imagination, we must ever hold this pic- 

 ture of our early days as the poetry of 

 rural life. 



We might tell many facts illustrating the 

 more than human sagacity of the shep- 

 herd's dog, but one or two will suffice, and 

 we think will not fail to be interesting: 



Mr. James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, 

 living in his early days among the sheep 

 and their quadruped attendants, and an ac- 

 curate observer of nature, as well as an 

 exquisite poet, gives some anecdotes of 

 the colley, (the Highland term for sheep 

 dog,) whh which the reader will not be dis- 



f)leased. "My dog, Sirrah," says he. in a 

 etter to the Editor of Blackwood's Edin- 

 burgh Magazine, "was, beyond all com- 

 parison, the best dog I ever saw. He had 

 a somewhat surly and unsocial temper, 

 disdaining all flattery, and refusing to be 

 caressed ; but hisattention tomycommands 

 and interest will never again be equalled 

 by any of the canine race. When I first 

 saw him a drover was leading him with a 

 rope. He was both lean and hungry, and 

 far from being a beautiful animal; for he 

 was almost black, and had a grim face, 

 striped with dark brown. I thought I per- 

 ceived a sort of sullen intelligence in his 

 countenance, notwithstanding his dejected 

 and forlorn appearance, and I bought him. 

 He was scarcely a year old, and knew so 

 little of herding that he had never turned 



a sheep in his life ; but, as soon as he dis- 

 covered it was his duty to do so, and that 

 it obliged me, I c m never forget with what 

 anxiety and eagerness he learned his dif- 

 ferent evolutions, and when I once made 

 him understand a direction he never forgot 

 or mistook it." 



On one night, a large flock of lambs that 

 were under the Ettrick Shepherd's care, 

 frightened by something, scampered away 

 in three different directions across the hilis, 

 in spite of all he could do to keep them to- 

 gether. "Sirrah," said the shepherd, 

 "they 're a' awa !" 



It was too dark for the dog and his mas- 

 ter to see each other at any considerable 

 distance, but Sirrah understood him, and 

 set off after the fugitives. The night 

 passed on, and Hogg and his assistant tra- 

 versed every neighboring hill in anxious 

 but fruitless search for the lambs; but he 

 could hear nothing of them nor of the dog, 

 and he was returning to his master with the 

 doleful intelligence that^e had lost all his 

 lambs. "On our way home, however," 

 says he, "we discovered a lot of lambs at 

 the bottom of a deep ravine called the 

 Flesh Cleuch, and the indefatigable Sirrah 

 standing in front of them, looking round 

 for some relief, but still true to his charge. 

 We concluded that it was one of the divi- 

 sions which Sirrah had been unable to 

 manage, until he came to that command- 

 ing situation. But what was our astonish- 

 ment when we discovered that not one 

 lamb of the flock was missing! How he 

 had got all the divisions collected in the 

 dark, is beyond my comprehension. The 

 charge was left entirely to himself from 

 midnight until the rising sun; and if all 

 the shepherds in the forest had been there 

 to have assisted him, they could not have 

 effected it with greater promptitude. All 

 that I can say is, that I never lei t so grate- 

 ful to any creature under the sun as I did 

 to my honest Sirrah that morning. — Gen. 

 Farmer. 



SPAYING SOWS. 



Have you ever heard of spaying sows, by a 

 new process'? Two months ago, I tried with 

 success, and with less pain to the animal, than 

 when done with the knife. It is, to inject with 

 a small syringe, up the uterus, about a wine- 

 glassful of sulphuric acid. This destroys, on 

 the part of the sow, all desire to take the boar. 

 I would inquire whether any other one has 

 tried this plan'?— American Agriculturist. 



