68 
THE SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR 
Fiom the Southern Planter. 
SjElCEP. 
By fishing in the sea of “stufi,” with which 
oar agricultural papers are filled, v.’e are some- 
times enabled to catch up a sensible, practical 
article like the following, taken Irom the “North 
Carolina Farmer,” a paper lately started at Ra- 
leigh, which we would most heartily commend 
to the attention ol our Southern friends. A 
thorough knowledge ot the sheep business would 
be as good as fitty thousand dollars to any man 
in Western Virginia : 
Mr. Lemay: Sir, — I have seen one or two ar- 
ticles in your new paper on the subject of rais- 
ing wool in this State. I have no practica 1 know- 
ledge of wool-raising in so warm a climate a 
North Carolina enjoys, especially in the Eastern 
part of the State. There are impediments in 
every department of husbandry to retard enter- 
prise ; but I feel sure that wool raising has as 
few drawbacks as most branches of employ- 
ment. The hindrances may be summed up as 
follows, viz: 
1. Climate and food. 
2. The diseases of sheep. 
3. Necessary piotection to sheep. 
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 sta- 
ple. Much ot the imported wool of the United 
Staiea has been brought from Spain. The lati- 
tude of the two countries is not the same, but 
the coldness of the Western Continent renders 
the climate much the same. The high or moun- 
tain districts of Spain produce the greater por- 
tion 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 grov/ih of wool. Scot- 
land and the more northerly parts of middle Eu- 
rope raise the greater part of the wool for Eng- 
lish manufactures. The nature of sheep leads 
them to the hills as much as the forest courts 
the instinct of the bird. In cold w^eather 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 the enclosure in cold 
weather. Horned cattle ought never to be kept 
in the same enclosure; yet sheep will pick 
much alter both horses and horned cattle ; per- 
haps a farmermay save halfihefeedofhissheep 
by allowing them to pick after his other slock; 
but never let them graze together or to be acces- 
sible 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 e.\perience 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 averase eight pounds per head tor 
the whole flock ot thirty sheep; and in one in- 
stance 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 industiy yields a profit only to labor 
and attention. If you read the mode of tillage 
that brought an unusual crop ot wheat or corn, 
you find the land was plowed 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 at 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 sum- 
mer. There is a fly peculiar to sheep pastures, 
besides the excessive warmth of their wool, that 
rendersgood shades necessary ; perhaps an open 
00 a hill i« 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 Iresh grass of spring has 
stimulated the sheep, and produced that change 
that all snimals experience at this season of the 
year. This new growth is s parate 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. Cloth made from wool of 
such a character is of inferior value. This 
drawback is owing to the long spring. Sheep 
cannot, with safety, be sheared before May ; 
grass often puts forth in March, and sometimes 
in February, it did so in 1842. In the Wes- 
tern portions of the Stale this evil is not so like- 
ly to befall 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 w'arm weather would 
stimulate reaction and produce a change of 
constitution. 
To introduce a fine, well reared stock, ol ei- 
ther sheep or domestic animals into a district 
where farmers are unacquainted with the mode 
of treatment to which they have before been ac- 
customed, is toquadruple the disadvantages un- 
der which the trial or experiment is to be made. 
In the first place the animal must undergo ac- 
climation, if he change latitude, or even if he 
be but removed from the north to the south side 
of a range ol elevated land a few miles, ox vice 
versa — or if from the east to the west, and the 
contrary. .Besides climate, the change of food 
owing t^different soils, and the change ot na- 
ture, all conspire to derange the constitution ; 
and all changes are for the worst. The native 
stocks of hogs, cattle, horses, etc., are always 
best to rear from, and it is but a species of mo- 
nomania tor any man to attempt to change the 
entire stock ol any couniry, or even district of 
country at once. The change must be gradual 
and keep pace with the knowledge ot the na- 
ture, habits and character ot the newly intro- 
duced breeds. 1 v.'ould not be understood as 
discouraging the introduction of superior ani- 
mals among us — far otherwise; I would foster 
the enterprise by every wise and practicable 
means or justifiable expense. Daily experi- 
ence 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 lor 12 
months and there read carefully the best means 
to improve his farm, (lor sure as he is living, 
improved stock comes Irom improved farms;) 
after he has read and practised improvea farm- 
ing, tried a It'w new grasses, and has put a lew 
acres in clover to feed his pigs, calves and 
lambs on, then he may safely order a fine blood- 
ed bull, boar and buck to range among his cows, 
sows and sheep at the proper season. And on 
the subject of the right time of the year, (or al- 
lowing the free intercourse ol bucks and ewes 
much of the success ol sheep rearing depends. 
The bucks should be kept up unlit such lime 
as will effectually prevent the too early produc- 
tion of lambs in the spring. In any effort lo 
rear a fine anima], care nrust be taken from the 
very first that it does not become stunted. 
More depends on the first year’s growth, in any 
animal, than ever after. If the animal is neg- 
lected the first year of its growth, give it up and 
try another. 
In adopting the native stock to rear from, we 
have all the produce of native and sound con- 
stitution and not liable to the vicissitudes of 
climate. Most, it not all, the discredit ot the 
Berkshire humbug, as some call it, would have 
been avoided by observing the above method — 
of first learning what sort of food is most suit- 
able to the animal, and having it provided ready 
when he first needed it. Sir, agriculture and 
' Improvement of stock must go band in band. 
The food of improved slock has been of a 
very superior grade to that grow'ing on our 
worn-out hills and old fields. The imported 
sheep have been nursed with great care by per- 
sons who are shepherds in fact, and it we are 
to raise sheep, we too must turn shepherds. It 
will never do to say to every negro, do so and 
so through the spring, and so and so through 
the summer, and so on lor the year with my 
sheep; but every man must daily inspect his 
sheeptold ; (tor such he must have, secure from 
without and w'ithin,) he must look to bis flock 
carefully; ifoneissick it must be separated 
from the flock and taken the strictest care of. 
It must be separated from the flock, because 
most diseases of sheep are contagious or at 
least contaminating, and liable to inlect the 
whole flock more or less — as the old adage has 
it — “ one smutty nosed sheep will spoil the whole 
flock.” There is more truth than ficlicD in the 
old saying. It must be nursed, because the 
constitution of sheep soon sinks under disease ; 
and if once a flock of sheep become weakly and 
sickly, it runs out. There is no restoring a pu- 
ny flock of sheep. The food for a better flock 
of sheep than w’e now have must be commen- 
surate with the grade. The finer the breed of 
sheep the more delicate the nature of the animal 
and the greater care must be taken ol it. Sheep 
must be sustained at all seasons of the year. 
It is the nature ol sheep to graze, and in North 
Carolina they can do so most of the year. In 
the winter a lew oats are the best support weak 
sheep can have. On the subjectot diet and dis- 
eases, every sheep raiser should be provided 
with a full treatise. It costs but little, and is 
of the first importance — buy one. 
Mr. Lemay, I will give you something on the 
protection of sheep, soon. Yours, &c., 
Wake Counly^ Nov. 12, 1845. M. R. 
From the Boston Courier. 
BREEDING ANIMAfi. S. 
The New York Courier & Enquirer of the 19th 
Jan., in a notice of the Farmei’s Librarj', for 
January, (a periodical conducted by J. S. Skin- 
ner, and published by Greeley &. McElrath,) has 
the follewing : 
The peculiarity of this number is in the disco- 
very which it announces — and a treatise on 
which discovery is forthwith to be published in 
its pages — that ihe quality and quantity of milk 
which a cow will give cun be unerringly ascertain- 
ed by external marks and appearances on ihe ani- 
mal. The value of such a discovery is obvious, 
tor since it costs just as much to keep a bad cow 
as a good one, and as by care in guarding them 
from intermixture, good races can be perpetua- 
ted — this discovery will at once consign bad 
miieh cows to the butcher, and with advantage 
all round— for the tendency tofatti n whic!! suits 
the sb' mbles, is one of the causes which render 
cov's indiflerent milkers.” 
There will be many an incredulous reader of 
the above paragraph, many who, as the transla- 
tor ot the work about lo appear in the Faimei’s 
Library says — will exclaim, “nonsense! who 
can believe any such thing 7 Y hat ! by merely 
lookingjht a cow to be able to tell hew niuchnii k 
she is capable of being made to yield !” — but the 
fact is even eo. 
It is of French origin, and the treatise, of 
which the translation is now to be laid before tlue 
readers of this periodical, isby i\I. Francis Gue- 
non — the translator is Wr. N. P. Trist, late Uni- 
ted States Consul at Havana, and a gentleman 
of accomplished mind. 
Y'hen the discovery was announced in France 
it attracted the notice of the chief Agricultural 
Societies, committees w^ere apuointed to investi- 
gate it, and on being satisfied that it is what it 
professes to be, a most important step in know- 
ledge, gold medals were awarded 'o the discover- 
er. Mr. Trist in his preface adds, that having 
explained the subject to one of our countrymen 
quite conversant with cattle, his curiosity was 
aw’akened — he took notes of the particular marks 
and indications, and after an absence of some 
weeks returned, saying, “ that thing is as true as 
a book. Since I was here I have looked at more 
cows than you ever saw, and I am perfectly sat- 
isfied the thing is just as the Frenchman said.” 
The proprietors of the Farmer’s Library have 
