50 
THE BEST SHEEP COUNTRY. 
THE BEST SHEEP COUNTRY. 
In reply to the inquiry of Americas, in your 
April number, of “ Where is the best Sheep Coun¬ 
try ?” I will answer, by giving as correct a descrip¬ 
tion of the southern portion of Mississippi, with 
my limited notions of sheep, as I can. 
This state borders on the gulf of Mexico about 
90 miles, a sandy pine-wood country. The coast 
is indented with numerous bays and tide-water 
bayous, which carry the salt water far into the in¬ 
terior, in every direction useful for stock, and con¬ 
venient for navigation. From the gulf coast for 2 
to 6 or 8 miles, the country is generally quite level; 
lying, as it were, in waves of dry, sandy ridges, 
and slow-running branches, parallel with the sea¬ 
shore ; these dry ridges occupy about two thirds 
or three fourths of the surface. On this kind of 
land I have had a small flock of 60 head of sheep 
for about a year, and they have done well, with¬ 
out any appearance of disease of any kind. After 
leaving this level tract of country, the land becomes 
rolling and hilly, and continues so for an average 
of 100 miles north, with an equal, or greater width, 
from east to west, extending into Alabama and 
Louisiana. This whole tract of country is covered 
with the long-leaf pitch pine ; near the seashore 
mixed with live-oak, magnolia, holly, sweet, red, 
and white bay, cedar, water oak, wild peach, myr¬ 
tle, and a great variety of small shrubs, all of which 
are evergreens ; and all the above tract of country 
is well covered with a great variety of our evergreen 
timber and shrubs. The whole of this tract is 
filled with the purest free-stone water, with an 
immense water-power on the numerous living 
streams, fed by innumerable springs. This whole 
section of country has long been celebrated for its 
great capacity to sustain immense herds of cattle, 
winter and summer, on its native grass, which 
covers the whole face of the country, and reed- 
brakes about springs and branches, but the “ goose 
has been killed for her golden egg.” Their stocks 
were increased beyond the capacity of the country 
thus to sustain ; the reed-brakes are mostly destroy¬ 
ed, or so seriously injured that the business of 
marking, branding, and selling cattle, does not now 
make men rich as heretofore, and many of these 
stock-raisers are giving more attention to the cul¬ 
tivation of the soil. This destruction of the native 
range for cattle, is a necessary preparation of the 
country for grazing sheep and goats. Instead of the 
reed which subsisted the cattle in the winter, 
sheep and goats prefer browsing on the evergreen 
twigs, briers, and a thick woolly-leaved plant that 
covers the whole country. Besides, our na¬ 
tive grass shoots up young spears all winter, under 
the dead grass, near the ground, which sheep will 
gather and subsist on, when cows would starve. 
Neither sheep nor any other kind of stock require 
salting within 25 or 30 miles of the seashore. Our 
whole winter of cold, bad weather, all crowded to¬ 
gether, on an average, would not equal the aver¬ 
age of your month of November alone. Our first 
killing frost generally comes between the 20th and 
last of November, and our last from 1st to 10th 
February, crowding what little winter weather 
we have into the short space of between two and 
three months, and often less than two. 
I believe there is now no doubt that as fine 
wool can be grown in this latitude as any other ; 
neither is there any doubt about the capacity of 
this country to raise grass for grazing, perhaps 
equal to most sections of the United States, par¬ 
ticularly the Bermuda, so well adapted to sheep. 
Any quantity of turneps, carrots, ruta-baga, &c., 
for fatting sheep in winter, can be grown here, on 
lands manured by penning sheep on them the pre¬ 
vious year; but so far, we find our mutton and 
lambs very fine, killed directly out of the woods. 
Perhaps nine tenths of the whole tract of coun¬ 
try is what may be called a dry, rolling, and hilly 
upland; no mud, and with fresh, pure water every¬ 
where convenient. If, then, these advantages of 
situation, water, and climate, with abundance of 
food, constitute this “ the best sheep country with¬ 
in the limits of the United States,” I will endeavor 
to prove that it would be a more desirable and 
profitable business here, than any place north of 
this. 
1. There is no part of our Union which will com¬ 
pare with this in point of health, all the year round; 
this I consider so perfectly a settled question with 
all who have taken the pains to examine it, that 
it will neither be doubted nor denied. 2. Our 
mildness of climate, alike free from the extremes 
of both the heat and cold of northern summers and 
winters. Our delightful seabreezes, tempering 
the effects of a southern sun; free from mud in 
winter, and dust in summer; and all our annoying 
insects put together are not so bad as the house 
flies of the north, which we are almost entirely 
free from here. 3. Our convenience to New Or¬ 
leans and Mobile, two of the best markets in the 
world for lamb and mutton, from which we can 
get advices of the market every day, and being al¬ 
ways on the alert, be in market the next, with 
whatever we have to sell; besides the convenience 
and facility of shipping wool to any point where 
we can find the best market, and last, though not 
most unimportant, the great water-power through¬ 
out this whole country; mildness of climate, 
cheapness of living, and comfort while we do live, 
and unsurpassed health of our whole coast, all 
conspire to warrant the belief, that manufactories 
of cotton and woollen goods will soon be started 
in this region of country, sufficient to consume all 
the wool that can be raised. A home market al¬ 
ways being the best, will add another strong argu¬ 
ment in favor of growing sheep and wool in this 
section of country. The capacity of the country 
on and near the seashore to raise sea-island cotton 
to advantage, and that of the country further back 
to produce the Mexican cotton to any desired ex¬ 
tent, would thus supply all the raw material, with¬ 
out expense of transportation, and at the same 
time open a market for the manufactured article 
of the same desirable kind. 
I may at some other time of more leisure, give 
you my opinions of the great advantages I consid¬ 
er the country possesses for tanning; manufacture 
of shoes, boots, saddles, and harness, hats, glass, 
silk, tar, turpentine, rosin, &c. 
However much I may be mistaken about the 
advantages and capabilities of this country, my 
opinions have not been hastily formed, nor with- 
