MEXICAN AND TEXAS SHEEP, ETC. 
349 
MEXICAN AND TEXAS SHEEP. 
In your July number of the Agriculturist, I ob¬ 
serve you wished to know something more in 
relation to the Mexican sheep, what kind they are, 
&c., in answer to which, I can say that they are a 
mongrel breed, and generally very coarse-wooled, 
and but little at that, being quite small and ugly 
shaped. The old Mexicans say, that many 
years ago, there were a great many fine-blooded 
sheep brought into that country from Spain, but 
for some years past there has been no pains taken 
to improve them. There seems to be, at this time, 
a great difference in the quality of their fleeces, 
some of them being nearly all coarse, while others 
have only half of their fleeces coarse, and some of 
them are as fine as the common American sheep. 
But by crossing them with fine-blooded sheep, in 
three or four years, we obtain a very hardy and 
good-wooled race. 
You wish to know, if my ewes had two 
lambs a year. They commonly have two lambs 
a year, and occasionally two at a time. I have 
had but one instance of an extraordinary in¬ 
crease of sheep, and that took place about 
the second year of my raising them. I had one 
ewe that gave birth to two lambs about the 20th of 
November. The May following, she had another, 
and strange to say, the next November she had two 
more lambs, making five in all, within the term of 
twelve months, and she had the good luck to raise 
them all! Shubael Marsh. 
Independence , Texas , Sept. 1st , 1848. 
Shade Trees for Cities and Villages.— 
These are not only ornamental and convenient, but 
highly useful. So long as shade trees are con¬ 
sidered only as a luxury in towns or cities, and 
contribute solely to the improvement of the taste 
and comfort of pedestrians, we despair of their 
eneral introduction. But since the utility they 
ave proved to be, in stopping the recent tremen¬ 
dous conflagrations in Albany and Brooklyn, we 
trust they will commend themselves to the accept¬ 
ance of owners of real estate. But for their pre¬ 
sence in both places, the fire would have crossed 
streets and extended its ravages far beyond the 
present ruins. When the insurance companies will 
take risks at 25 per cent, less premium where the 
buildings are protected by a dense mass of foliage 
in front, then we may hope to see beautiful shade 
trees lining a majority of the streets of the cities of 
the United States. 
At the north, October and November are the 
proper time for planting out trees, when the weather 
is open and mild; but at the south, December is the 
proper time, whether the weather be mild or not. 
Effects of Domestication on Birds. —Profes¬ 
sor Low, in speaking of the effect of domestication 
on birds, says: “ They lose the power of flight by 
the increased size of their abdomen, and the di¬ 
minished power of their pectoral muscles; and 
other parts of their body are altered to suit this 
conformation. All their habits change; they lose 
the caution and sense of danger, which, in their 
native state, they possessed. The male no longer 
retires with a single female to breed, but becomes 
polygamous, and his progeny lose the power and 
the will to regain the freedom of their race.” 
THE ARRACACHA vs. THE POTATO. 
The adaptation of the potato for widely-diflferent 
climates, when in its former vigorous state, was a 
very remarkable fact. It has been cultivated from 
the equatorial table lands to the verge of the polar 
regions; it produced thirty fold, in 1846, at the 
manse of Loevaars, in the northern district of Ice¬ 
land. It is scarcely less astonishing that whilst 
the arracacha grows side by side with the potato in 
South America, and there rivals, or even outrivals 
it as regards amount of alimentary produce, yet its 
cultivation has hitherto proved almost a complete 
failure in Europe as well as in Algiers. Expe¬ 
rience, and a better knowledge of its habits, may, 
however, greatly tend to obviate the difficulty. 
We can command temperature, regulate both it 
and moisture, and produce various soils; but we 
cannot condition the plants as on their native table 
lands in regard to the density of the air. Contrast¬ 
ed with their climate, comparatively low mountain 
districts are too cold; and near the level of the sea 
the pressure of the atmosphere is nearly one third 
more than on the elevated situations where the ar¬ 
racacha naturally grows; for instance, at Bogota, 
at 9,000 feet elevation, the atmospheric pressure will 
be upwards of 4 lbs. Jess on the square inch than it 
would be anywhere near the level of the sea; and 
this being the case, evaporation from the surface of 
the leaves will be proportionably facilitated; for, 
according to Professor Daniell, evaporation is in¬ 
versely proportionate, coeteris paribus, to the elastici¬ 
ty of the atmosphere. Hence it may be computed 
that a plant evaporating 30 grains in a given time 
in the Andes of New Granada, would evaporate 
little more than 20 grains in the climate of London. 
The arracacha may, therefore, be expected to thrive 
bes* in an airy situation, provided it is not too 
cold. 
DESTRUCTION OF SUGAR CANE BY RATS. 
Our cane fields in this country are so infested 
with rats, that a very large portion of our crops are 
annually destroyed by their ravages, notwith¬ 
standing all we can do by means of traps, poisons, 
dogs, &c., and we are obliged to subject our¬ 
selves to a considerable expense, by paying our 
watchmen, by way of premium, a penny per head 
for every animal they bring us, amounting to 
several thousand pence per annum, on every estate. 
They are too cunning to take arsenic and other 
mineral poisons we set, and we are afraid to use 
scents to induce them, for fear of drawing them 
from the distant cocoa walks (where they also do 
much damage), and the surrounding wood and 
brush lands where they congregate, to our cane 
fields. 
In the third volume of the Agriculturist, page 
284, I observe a recipe from Dr. Ure, of dissolved 
phosphorus, but he does not say the quantity of 
this fatty compound that should be mixed with 
(say), a pound of dough, made with half sugar and 
one half flour. If this remedy is used in the United 
States, you or some of your correspondents may be 
kind enough to make it known through your 
columns, and oblige 
A West-India Subscriber. 
Granada, Sept. 9th, 1848. 
