THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



1. The Climate of North Carolina is in 

 many respects similar to that of Spain, where 

 the raising of wool has long prevailed as a staple. 

 Much of the imported wool of the United States 

 has been brought from Spain. The latitude of 

 the two countries is not the same, but the cold- 

 ness of the Western Continent renders the cli- 

 mate much the same. The high or mountain 

 districts of Spain produce the greater portion of 

 the wool, and it is probable that the same is to 

 be the case in North Carolina. It is a notorious 

 fact that the Northern latitudes are the best 

 adapted to the growth of wool. Scotland and 

 the more northerly parts of middle Europe raise 

 the greater part of the wool for English manu- 

 factures. The nature of sheep leads them to 

 the hills as much as the forest courts the instinct 

 of the bird. In cold weather sheep leave the 

 fold and wander to some elevated spot to graze, 

 and will only leave it in very severe weather. 

 Sheep should never be housed ; an open shelter, 

 closed on three sides, open on the South, ought 

 to be in the enclosure in cold weather. Horned 

 cattle ought never to be kept in the same en- 

 closure ; yet sheep will pick much after both 

 horses and horned cattle ; perhaps a farmer may 

 save half the feed of his sheep by allowing 

 them to pick after his other stock: but never let 

 them graze together or to be accessible to hogs 

 in time of having young lambs. Sheep, if 

 healthy, are a hardy animal. 



The question, whether North Carolina has a 

 suitable climate, and the proper food to sustain 

 large flocks of sheep on small portions of land, 

 is unsettled ; for I hold practical experience to 

 be the only answer admissible to questions of so 

 much importance. That sheep do flourish and 

 do well, in small flocks, in all parts of the State, 

 is indisputable ; as I have seen them in all sec- 

 tions, from the sea coast to the mountains. — 

 Sheep of the common wool kind, have been 

 made to yield on an average eight pounds per 

 head for the whole flock of thirty sheep; and 

 in one instance as high as sixteen pounds of 

 wool was sheared from one sheep. A farmer 

 ought to be satisfied with from four to six pounds 

 per head, unless he uses more than ordinary 

 care. Every branch of industry yields a profit 

 only to labor and attention. If you read the 

 mode of tillage that brought an unusual crop of 

 wheat or corn, you find the land was ploughed 

 deep, subsoiled, rolled, harrowed, manured and 

 worked over and over, again and again. A 

 man that wishes to raise a good field of corn 

 must get up by daylight and see every thing 

 right, and his land must be kept all the time 

 loose ; so if he raises sheep, he must be up at 

 all times and see them often. Salt them, have 

 good shade trees in his fields, or make shelters 

 open on all sides in the summer. There is a fly 

 peculiar to sheep pastures, besides the excessive 

 warmth of their wool, that renders good shades 



necessary — perhaps an open grove on a hill is 

 the best shelter in summer. 



The only valid objection to raising wool of a 

 fine quality, is the changing temperature of 

 spring. Sheep, if not sheared, would shed their 

 coats annually. The wool matures by the end 

 of autumn, and the new crop commences its 

 growth as soon as the fresh grass of spring has 

 stimulated the sheep, and produced that change 

 that all animals experience at this season of the 

 year. This new growth is separate in its film 

 from the old coat, and if cut off with it ruins 

 the whole fleece for making any fine fabric, as 

 the new growth in carding, works up into knots 

 and pervades the whole texture, producing weak- 

 ness or rottenness. Cloih made from wool of 

 such a character is of inferior value. This draw- 

 back is owing to the long spring. Sheep can- 

 not, with safety, be sheared before May ; grass 

 often puts forth in March, and somelimes in Feb- 

 ruary ; it did so in 1842. In the "Western por- 

 tions of the State this evil is not so likely to be- 

 fall wool raisers — as the spring is later and more 

 abrupt. The only remedy for this evil is to feed 

 the sheep from the barn and not let them pick 

 grass so early, yet this would be but a partial 

 remedy, the warm weather would stimulate re- 

 action, and produce a change of constitution. 



To introduce a fine, well reared stock, of either 

 sheep or other domestic animals into a district 

 where farmers are unacquainted with the mode 

 of treatment to which they have before been 

 | accustomed, is to quadruple the disadvantages 

 under which the trial or experiment is to be 

 made. In the first place, the animal must un- 

 dergo acclimation, if he change latitude, or even 

 if he be but removed from the north to the 

 south side of a range of elevated land a few 

 miles, or vice versa — or if from the east to the 

 west, and the contrary. Besides climate, the 

 change of food owing to different soils, and the 

 change of nature, all conspire to derange the 

 constitution ; and all changes are for the worse. 

 The native stocks of hogs, cattle, horses, etc., 

 are always best to rear from, and it is but a 

 species of monomania for any man to attempt 

 to change the entire stock of any country, or 

 even district of country at once. The change 

 must be gradual and keep pace with the know- 

 ledge of the nature, habits and character of the 

 newly introduced breeds. I would not be un- 

 derstood as discouraging the introduction of 

 superior animals among us — far otherwise; I 

 would foster the enterprise by every wise and 

 practicable means, or justifiable expense. Daily 

 experience teaches us that the correct way to 

 improve stock, is to do it gradually. I would 

 suggest this rule as the safest way of procedure 

 to any man who desires to improve his stock, 

 viz : to first take some good agricultural paper 

 for twelve months and there read carefully the 

 best means to improve his farm, (for sure as he 



