SHtEP AT THE SOUTH. 
1 16 
It has always seemed to me that, after employing 
all the labor we can in home manufactures ; in the 
raising of heavy crops of grain so as to supply the 
home demand, keep work animals fat, and raise and 
fatten abundance of pork; next to these we could 
keep sheep enough to sell 100 pounds of good wool 
to the hand—employ a few hands profitably, and 
so as to have them in the cotton field when most 
needed—occupy our worn lands to advantage, and, 
by a little judicious management, bring them back 
to their original state of fertility. All these would 
be objects well worth attaining, if practicable ; and 
of this I could very quickly convince you, had I 
the leisure. 
The poorest worn lands of this part of Missis¬ 
sippi will grow Bermuda grass enough to support 
an average of two of our native sheep to the acre, 
and will improve each year to such an extent, that 
within as many years from five to seven head may 
be kept. Sheep enrich land more rapidly than any 
other kind of stock ; the Spaniards, you know, say 
that “ sheep have golden feet,”—and, in this sense, 
they certainly have. This grass, too, keeps all it 
gets of top-dressing, until its sod becomes sur¬ 
prisingly close. 
I would by no means wish to be understood as 
advising any one to abandon the growth of cotton 
entirely, for that of wool and mutton—unless, in¬ 
deed, the land has become so much worn as no 
longer to yield a remunerative crop, and the planter 
might be inclined and have the means to open an¬ 
other plantation. But I would urge every hill- 
planter to procure a stock of sheep sufficient to 
yield say 100 lbs. of wool to the hand—first setting 
his worn lands in grass, to an extent sufficient for 
their abundant support. 
To satisfy myself as to what kind of sheep 
would suit us best, was one great object of my 
journey. That we can grow as fine wool as is 
produced in any part of the -world, I think is cer¬ 
tain ; though the assertion has been so often made 
and reiterated, that in our southern climate the finest 
wools soon become mere hair} or at best assume a 
much coarser character, that even our most intelli¬ 
gent planters have, many of them, taken it as an 
established fact—when, in truth, it is the mere 
assertion of your closet philosophers, -without a 
single fact to sustain it. The belief has done much 
to prevent the growth of fine wool in the South. 
It is not, however, necessary that sheep, to be 
profitable, should be of the fine-wooled breeds. 
Our native sheep, indifferent as their wool-produc¬ 
ing qualities are, give us the finest mutton in the 
world. They are light-bodied, and long-legged- 
in my opinion the result in a great measure of their 
in and in breeding; give us about a pound, not 
more, of wool about the quality of Southdown, but 
of a much softer character—much of it closely re¬ 
sembling that imported from Cordova, under the 
five per cent. duty. Even as they now are, they 
are profitable; and to render them richly so, all 
that is needful is to cross them with almost any 
other breed. You may recollect the very superior 
samples of wool I showed you, from the lambs of 
those same naked-bellied ewes, by a superior Merino 
buck. The Saxony, Southdown, Cotswold and 
Bakewell, all bring about as great a degree of 
improvement, though differing in kind perhaps. 
But I am forgetting the intention of my present 
writing. 
I commenced the handling of your northern 
flocks at Utica. The exhibition there was a very 
fair one, though more might well have been ex¬ 
pected of the largest sheep-owning State, at her 
State show. I afterwards saw several of the flocks 
on their own walks. Of the Merinos exhibited, the 
ram belonging to the Messrs. Carpenter seemed to 
me the best animal; his coat was exceedingly 
close, and must weigh well; and the staple as fine 
as that of any Merino I ever saw. Mr. Reed Bur- 
ritt, of Tompkins Co., N. Y., showed some large, 
finely formed animals, if one might judge of their 
form under such a coat of wool. Their fleece had 
not been cut last spring, and though heavy was 
full of yolk, and not remarkably fine. Mr. Blakes- 
lee’s flock is a very superior one; and not only 
those he himself had there, but the draft from the 
flock of Col. Sherwood, which originated from Mr. 
B.’s, attracted, and justly, great attention. Judge 
Smith, of Woodbury, Conn., had some very supe¬ 
rior animals—Saxony-Merinos—being a cross from 
Mr. Blakeslee’s best rams upon a very superior lot 
of Saxony ewes. It was this flock which first 
opened my eyes to the foolish prejudice, existing 
amongst a great many, to this cross; and I after¬ 
wards had repeated proofs that the best wool grown 
in the Union, if not in the world, is borne on the 
backs of the Saxony-Merino; and that the animals 
themselves are just as hardy, and nearly, if not 
quite, as large as any others, producing even mode¬ 
rately fine wool. Judge Smith is daily improving 
his flock. There were beautiful Saxonies, with 
their soft, pure, white, clean coats, from Vernon, 
N. Y.—drafts from the flocks of Messrs. Crocker, 
Church, and others. Their fleeces, and those of the 
Saxony-Merinos, will yield more perfectly clean 
wool than any Merino fleeces I have yet met 
with, having any claims to equal fineness, which 
few of them have; and I am fully inclined to be¬ 
lieve that they will produce more pounds of w r ool 
than any other breed, and perhaps as many of mutton. 
! I saw an excellent communication in the last num¬ 
ber of the Quarterly Journal of Agriculture, on 
this subject, which is taken up in the proper man¬ 
ner. And the wu-iter may be correct—that on ap¬ 
plying a powerful microscope to fibres of wool from 
sheep of different breeds, that of the finest Saxonies 
in the country is found to be but little, if any, 
less in diameter than that from some of the largest 
sized Merinos, which to the naked eye seems com¬ 
paratively coarse. He remarks at the same time, 
that the ( apparent) cavity within the fibre is much 
larger in the Saxony; and adds that it is this, he 
believes, which gives it its silky lustre and soft 
feel. Now, in my opinion, it is its silky lustre that 
causes the appearance of a cavity, where, in fact, 
none exists, to be greater in this variety. He says 
nothing of the spiral turns in the fibre, and com¬ 
parative number and fineness of the serratures, 
which produce its felting properties, and determines 
its value to the manufacturer, which last, by the 
way, is all the grower cares for. But I am again 
forgetting myself. 
The only passable Southdowns were a few 
