7 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER, 



liebotefc to Agriculture, ©ortCculture, auft tlie JUauselxolfc Arts. 



Agriculture is the nursing mother of the 

 Arts . — Xenophon. 



Tillage and Pasturage are the two breasts 

 of the SgELte. — Sully. 



7/ 

 A? 7 



Vol. VII. 



RICHMOND, JANUARY, 1847. 



No. 1. 



PUBLISHED MONTHLY, 



BY P. D. BERNARD. 



BY C, 



EDITED 



T. BOTTS 



Price One Dollar and Fifty Cents per annum — 

 discharged by the payment of One Dollar withi^ 

 six months from the time of subscribing. 



VIRGINIA SHEEP. 



The " signs of the times" all point to 

 the business of sheep raising as one that 

 is shortly to become the business of the 

 farmer in Middle and Western Virginia, 

 and a good sheep walk is, even now more 

 valuable than a tobacco lot. Col. Ware, of 

 Jefferson, has long been known to us as 

 one of the most judicious and enterpris- 

 ing breeders in any portion of the Union, 

 and we are pleased to see from the fol- 

 lowing article, which we find in the 

 " Charlestown Free Press," that his well 

 directed efforts to improve his flock of 

 sheep have been attended with such emi- 

 nent success. From a private source we 

 learn that Col. Ware could have sold his 

 whole flock to the butcher for the sham- 

 bles, at ten dollars a head, a price, we im- 

 agine, altogether unprecedented in this 

 country. His breeding ram, we are told, 

 without having ever been fed, weighed, 

 at sixteen months old, two hundred and 

 thirty-five pounds. There surely can be 

 no reason for a Virginian's sending to the 

 North, or to Europe, for stock sheep, as 



long as he can be supplied on moderate 

 Vol. VII.— 1. 



terms, at home with such sheep as these. 

 The following is the article to which we 

 referred : 



Col. Josiah W. Ware, of Clarke county, 

 has given much of his attention for a few 

 years past, to raising and improving the 

 quality of sheep. He has now on his 

 farm a large stock of the Cotswold breed, 

 which are highly^prized, both on account 

 of the fine fleeces they afford, and the. 

 delightful quality of mutton when slaugh- 

 tered. We recently copied an article from 

 the Winchester Republican noticing a sale 

 Colonel W. made to Mr. Jacob Pittman, 

 who was stocking his farm in Augusta, 

 and another sale to Mr. Philip Otterback, 

 for the Washington City market. Mr. 

 O. is, peihaps, as good a judge of fine 

 mutton as there is in the country, inas- 

 much as he has been engaged in slaugh- 

 tering for many } 7 ears, and has quite a 

 reputation for his judgment in making 

 selections for his stalls. The high com- 

 pliment he pays Col. Ware in his adver- 

 tisement of the stock, is one that is richly 

 merited and freely given. 



The following article from the Win- 

 chester Republican is published in con- 

 nexion with a statement from Mr. Otter- 

 back, of the Washington market, who 

 fully sustains the views expressed in re- 

 ference to the quality of Col. W.'s sheep : 



" Fine Sheep. — We have seen differ- 

 ent notices in Northern and other papers, 

 of fine breeds of sheep, but we think we can 

 name some in our neighborhood scarcely 

 to be excelled any where. 



"Col. Josiah W.Ware, of Clarke county, 

 near Berryville, has given some attention 

 to this subject, and has supplied himself 

 with sheep which will bear a comparison 

 with any. in the country, and from which 

 he has raised his now superior stock. — 

 His slock are of the Cotswold breeds and 



