1851 
THE CULTIVATOR 
such sheep as we were in search of. There are but few 
sheep in the southern part of Germany, and those not 
fine. We went into Saxony before we stopped to look. 
We went most of the way by railroad; found good rail¬ 
roads, and very carefully managed. As a general thing, 
they run cars slower than they do in this country. They 
have watchmen stationed at short distances from each 
other, to see that the track is kept clear. On some of 
the roads, they have four classes of cars. The first is 
fitted up in fine style, and is dear 5 but few ride in them; 
the saying has been used, I believe, that “ none but prin¬ 
ces and fools ride in them.” The 2nd are good cars, ge¬ 
nerally have spring seats; the Bd are comfortable. More 
go, probably, in the 3d, than any other class. On some 
of the roads they have a fourth still, where the villages 
are thick. These are to accommodate the poor people 
that wish to travel from one village to another. They 
have no seats; they crowd them in thick, like cattle. 
After we got into Saxony, we stopped and began to 
take excursions into the different parts of the country; 
found some good Saxon sheep; better than any I ever 
saw in this country. But we found nothing that would 
answer our purpose; there were two great faults in them 
—feeble constitution and light fleece. But there has 
been a change in some of these flocks in a few years past, 
in their manner of breeding. They are now breeding 
for folds of the skin. There is marked difference in every 
year’s crop for the last five years. Those that are five or 
six years old, are smooth, tight-skinned, while many of 
the young sheep are covered in folds from the nose to 
the tail. The wool upon these folds is as fine as on the 
other parts of the body. 
The stables for the sheep are built of brick or stone, 
are very warm. They are high between joints, as near 
as I could judge, from 12 to 15 feet; the sheep are kept 
very close in them, and the breath from the sheep makes 
them very warm—many of them so warm that it was 
uncomfortable to go into them, although it was quite 
cold at the time. The stables are not well arranged for 
convenience; there is but very little room in the upper 
loft for storing fodder. The fodder for the sheep is ge¬ 
nerally stowed in a barn on one side of the yard. Yery 
little attention is paid in Europe to the construction of 
anything for labor saving. The sheep establishments are 
generally built in the form of a square; the stables for 
the stock on two sides; the barns for storing fodder on 
one, and the dwellings for the sheep-master and his as¬ 
sistants occupy the other. There are some very fine 
stables for sheep, that cost large sums of money. As a 
general thing, they keep their sheep very poor. Through 
Germany they feed large quantities of straw, not much 
grain, but a good many roots. 
After looking at several of the best establishments and 
flocks in Saxony, we went on into Prussian Silesia, as 
Mr. Fleischman said that would be the place where we 
should find such sheep as we were looking for. We went 
as far east as Breslau. Breslau is the greatest wool 
market in Europe. The system they have adopted has 
proved very advantageous to them, and I think it would 
be useful in this country, if practiced. The wool deal¬ 
ers buy the wool from the grower ; then each fleece is 
sorted into different parts according to its quality, which 
enables the manufacturer to get just the kind of wool 
331 
he wants. They say it has proved profitable both to the 
dealer and manufacturer. 
We went over Silesia pretty generally, but found only 
one flock that came up to what we were looking for. We 
bought from that flock 40 ewes, which were all that we 
could get at any price. The sheep which this flock was 
raised from, were imported from Spain in 1811—were 
of the Infantado and Nigretta stock. They have been 
kept pure, and bred with great care. They have always 
had two things uppermost—constitution and weight of 
fleece. These sheep have more good points than any 
that I have ever met with before. They are clothed in 
wool from the nose to the hoof. The wool is thickly set, 
and an even surface. They possess what all good breed¬ 
ers in Germany consider very essential—a perfect wool 
staple. The wool hair being of the same size all the 
way—the wool as shick on the out end as it is near the 
body. They are very careful about keeping up the 
thickness of the wool, in order to get the greatest weight 
of fleece. They prefer wool about the medium length. 
If they get it too long^it becomes thick and flabby, parts 
on the back, and they lose in weight. They say it is 
much easier to get length than it is to retain thickness. 
The sheep will shear as much according to the weight of 
carcase, I am sure, as any sheep I ever saw. There is 
no waste space on them, and the wool is quite fine for 
Merino, and very thickly set. The wool is very clean 
and white on the inside, but quite dark on the outer 
ends. 
Men take care of the sheep, and women take care of 
the cattle. The time we were there, they were prepar¬ 
ing the land for spring crops. There were as many wo¬ 
men at work in the fields, as men. They were spading 
the ground. Half the land, as near as I could judge, 
that they cultivate, is spaded, and mostly done by wo¬ 
men. I have seen, sometimes, as many as 20 in one com¬ 
pany, spading. They bring most kinds of domestic ani¬ 
mals into requisition to help them do their work, and 
couple them together in a very incongruous manner, 
perhaps an ox and a cow, horse and cow, donkey and 
cow, man and donkey, harnessed together to work in the 
fields. 
In Saxony and Silesia I saw very little wheat, but 
large fields of rye. Yery little wheat bread is eaten in 
Germany. The poor people live principally on soup and 
bread, made of rye ground up without bolting, and beer. 
They will have their beer if nothing else. It is aston¬ 
ishing what quantities of beer are drunk. They are 
truly, as has been said, a nation of beer drinkers. Al¬ 
most every estate has a brewery and wind-mill attached. 
If it was not for the currency, I would like travelling 
in Germany better than any other part of the continent. 
Every little state has a different currency, and different 
coins, and what you get in one, often will not pass in the 
adjoining one. The people are very kind and hospitable, 
and appear very honest. In general, I found excellent 
hotels, good atttention, and much cheaper bills, than in 
any other part of Europe that I visited. 
We brought our sheep 400 miles by railroad, to Bre¬ 
men, where we shipped them on board the steamship 
Herman. We were 19 days from Bremen to New-York 
—lay three days at Southampton, England. While 
stopping there, I took an excursion into Devonshire, to 
