Part 2

ILLUSTRATIONS. VARIETIES OF FOWL 327 (7) THE BANTAM 331 (11) BANTAM 332 (12) BOLTON GRAYS OR CREOLE FOWL 333 (13) COCHIN CHINAS 337 (17) WHITE DORKINGS 341 (21) GRAY GAME FOWLS 346 (26) GUELDERLANDS 349 (29) HAMBURGH FOWLS 350 (30) MALAYS 354 (34) POLAND FOWLS 359 (39) SHANGHAES 365 (45) WHITE SHANGHAES 367 (47) SPANISH FOWLS 369 (49) THE GUINEA FOWL 379 (59) THE PEA FOWL 382 (62) THE WILD TURKEY 386 (66) THE DOMESTIC TURKEY 392 (72) THE EIDER DUCK 395 (75) WILD DUCK 397 (77) ROUEN DUCK 399 (79) WILD OR CANADA GOOSE 403 (83) A BREMEN GOOSE 409 (89) CHINA OR HONG KONG GOOSE 411 (91) BARNYARD SCENE 421 (101) FIGHTING COCKS 429 (109) ON THE WATCH 440 (120) MARQUEE OR TENT-SHAPED COOPS 456 (136) DUCK-POND AND HOUSES 461 (141) A BAD STYLE OF SLAUGHTERING 468 (148) RUSTIC POULTRY-HOUSE 475 (155) A FANCY COOP IN CHINESE OR GOTHIC STYLE 476 (156) AMONG THE STRAW 478 (158) PRAIRIE HENS 483 (163) SWANS 488 (168)

HISTORY AND VARIETIES

With a single exception--that of the dog--there is no member of the beast family which presents so great a diversity of size, color, form, covering, and general appearance, as characterizes the sheep; and none occupy a wider range of climate, or subsist on a greater variety of food. This animal is found in every latitude between the Equator and the Arctic circle, ranging over barren mountains and through fertile valleys, feeding upon almost every species of edible forage--the cultivated grasses, clovers, cereals, and roots--browsing on aromatic and bitter herbs alike, cropping the leaves and barks from stunted forest shrubs and the pungent, resinous evergreens. In some parts of Norway and Sweden, when other resources fail, he subsists on fish or flesh during the long, rigorous winter, and, if reduced to necessity, even devours his own wool.

In size, he is diminutive or massive; he has many horns, or but two large or small spiral horns, or is polled or hornless. His tail may be broad, or long, or a mere button, discoverable only by the touch. His covering is long and coarse, or short and hairy, or soft and furry, or fine and spiral. His color varies from white or black to every shade of brown, dun, buff, blue, and gray. This wide diversity results from long domestication under almost every conceivable variety of condition.

Among the antediluvians, sheep were used for sacrificial offerings, and their fleeces, in all probability, furnished them with clothing. Since the deluge their flesh has been a favorite food among many nations. Many of the rude, wandering tribes of the East employ them as beasts of burden. The uncivilized--and, to some extent, the refined--inhabitants of Europe use their milk, not only as a beverage, but for making into cheese, butter, and curds--an appropriation of it which is also noticed by Job, Isaiah, and other Old Testament writers, as well as most of the Greek and Roman authors. The ewe's milk scarcely differs in appearance from that of the cow, though it is generally thicker, and yields a pale, yellowish butter, which is always soft and soon becomes rancid. In dairy regions the animal is likewise frequently employed at the tread-mill or horizontal wheel, to pump water, churn milk, or perform other light domestic work.

The calling of the shepherd has, from time immemorial, been conspicuous, and not wanting in dignity and importance. Abel was a keeper of sheep; as were Abraham and his descendants, as well as most of the ancient patriarchs. Job possessed fourteen thousand sheep. Rachel, the favored mother of the Jewish race, "came with her father's sheep, for she kept them." The seven daughters of the priest of Midian "came and drew water for their father's flocks." Moses, the statesman and lawgiver, "learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians," busied himself in tending "the flocks of Jethro, his father-in-law." David, too, that sweet singer of Israel and its destined monarch--the Jewish hero, poet, and divine--was a keeper of sheep. To shepherds, "abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flocks by night," came the glad tidings of a Saviour's birth. The Hebrew term for sheep signifies, in its etymology, fruitfulness, abundance, plenty--indicative of the blessings which they were destined to confer upon the human family. In the Holy Scriptures, this animal is the chosen symbol of purity and the gentler virtues, the victim of propitiatory sacrifices, and the type of redemption to fallen man.

Among profane writers, Homer and Hesiod, Virgil and Theocritus, introduce them in their pastoral themes; while their heroes and demi-gods--Hercules and Ulysses, Eneas and Numa--carefully perpetuate them in their domains.

In modern times, they have engaged the attention of the most enlightened nations, whose prosperity has been intimately linked with them, wherever wool and its manufactures have been regarded as essential staples. Spain and Portugal, during the two centuries in which they figured as the most enterprising European countries, excelled in the production and manufacture of wool. Flanders, for a time, took precedence of England in the perfection of the arts and the enjoyments of life; and the latter country then sent what little wool she raised to the former to be manufactured. This being soon found highly impolitic, large bounties were offered by England for the importation of artists and machinery; and by a systematic and thorough course of legislation, which looked to the utmost protection and increase of wool and woollens, she gradually carried their production beyond any thing the world had ever seen.

Of the original breed of this invaluable animal, nothing certain is known; four varieties having been deemed by naturalists entitled to that distinction.

These are, 1. The _Musimon_, inhabiting Corsica, Sardinia, and other islands of the Mediterranean, the mountainous parts of Spain and Greece, and some other regions bordering upon that inland sea. These have been frequently domesticated and mixed with the long-cultivated breeds.

2. The _Argali_ ranges over the steppes, or inland plains of Central Asia, northward and eastward to the ocean. They are larger and hardier than the Musimon and not so easily tamed.

3. The _Rocky Mountain Sheep_--frequently called the _Bighorn_ by our western hunters--is found on the prairies west of the Mississippi, and throughout the wild, mountainous regions extending through California and Oregon to the Pacific. They are larger than the Argali--which in other respects they resemble--and are probably descended from them, since they could easily cross upon the ice at Behring's Straits, from the north-eastern coast of Asia. Like the Argali, when caught young they are readily tamed; but it is not known that they have ever been bred with the domestic sheep. Before the country was overrun by the white ram, they probably inhabited the region bordering on the Mississippi. Father Hennepin--a French Jesuit, who wrote some two hundred years ago--often speaks of meeting with goats in his travels through the territory which is now embraced by Illinois, Wisconsin, and a portion of Minnesota. The wild, clambering propensities of these animals--occupying, as they do, the giddy heights far beyond the reach of the traveller--and their outer coating of hair--supplied underneath, however, with a thick coating of soft wool--give them much the appearance of goats. In summer they are generally found single; but when they descend from their isolated, rocky heights in winter, they are gregarious, marching in flocks under the guidance of leaders.

4. The _Bearded Sheep of Africa_ inhabit the mountains of Barbary and Egypt. They are covered with a soft, reddish hair, and have a mane hanging below the neck, and large, locks of hair at the ankle.

Many varieties of the domesticated sheep--that is, all the subjugated species--apparently differ less from their wild namesakes than from each other.

The _fat-rumped_ and the _broad-tailed sheep_ are much more extensively diffused than any other, and occupy nearly all the south-eastern part of Europe, Western and Central Asia, and Northern Africa. They are supposed, from various passages in the Pentateuch in which "the fat and the rump" are spoken of in connection with offerings, to be the varieties which were propagated by the patriarchs and their descendants, the Jewish race. They certainly give indisputable evidence of remote and continued subjugation. Their long, pendent, drowsy ears, and the highly artificial posterior developments, are characteristic of no wild or recently domesticated race.

This breed consists of numerous sub-varieties, differing in all their characteristics of size, fleece, color, etc., with quite as many and marked shades of distinction as the modern European varieties. In Madagascar, they are covered with hair; in the south of Africa, with coarse wool; in the Levant, and along the Mediterranean, the wool is comparatively fine; and from that of the fat-rumped sheep of Thibet the exquisite Cashmere shawls of commerce are manufactured. Both rams and ewes are sometimes bred with horns, and sometimes without, and they exhibit a great diversity of color. Some yield a carcass of scarcely thirty pounds, while others have weighed two hundred pounds dressed. The tail or rump varies greatly, according to the purity and style of breeding; some are less than one-eighth, while others exceed one-third of the entire dressed weight. The fat of the rump or tail is esteemed a great delicacy; in hot climates resembling oil, and in colder, suet.

It is doubtful whether sheep are indigenous to Great Britain; but they are mentioned as existing there at very early periods.

AMERICAN SHEEP.

In North America, there are none, strictly speaking, except the Rocky Mountain breed, already mentioned. The broad-tailed sheep of Asia and Africa were brought into the United States about seventy years ago, under the name of the Tunisian Mountain sheep, and bred with the native flocks. Some of them were subsequently distributed among the farmers of Pennsylvania, and their mixed descendants were highly prized as prolific, and good nurses, coming early to maturity, attaining large weight, of a superior quality of carcass, and yielding a heavy fleece of excellent wool. The principal objection made to them was the difficulty of propagation, which always required the assistance of the shepherd. The lambs were dropped white, red, tawny, bluish, or black; but all, excepting the black, grew white as they approached maturity, retaining some spots of the original color on the cheeks and legs, and sometimes having the entire head tawny or black. The few which descended from the original importations have become blended with American flocks, and have long ceased to be distinguishable from them. The common sheep of Holland were early imported by the Dutch emigrants, who originally colonized New York; but they, in like manner, have long since ceased to exist as a distinct variety.

Improved European breeds have been so largely introduced during the present century, that the United States at present possesses every known breed which could be of particular benefit to its husbandry. By the census of 1860, there were nearly twenty-three and a half millions of sheep in this country, yielding upwards of sixty and a half million pounds of wool. An almost infinite variety of crosses have taken place between the Spanish, English, and "native" families; carried, indeed, to such an extent that there are, comparatively speaking, few flocks in the United States that preserve entire the distinctive characteristics of any one breed, or that can lay claim to unmixed purity of blood.

The principal breeds in the United States are the so-called "Natives;" the Spanish and Saxon Merinos, introduced from the countries whose names they bear: the New Leicester, or Bakewell; the South-Down; the Cotswold; the Cheviot; and the Lincoln--all from England.

NATIVE SHEEP.

This name is popularly applied to the common coarse-woolled sheep of the country, which existed here previously to the importation of the improved breeds. These were of foreign and mostly of English origin, and could probably claim a common descent from no one stock. The early settlers, emigrating from different sections of the British Empire, and a portion of them from other parts of Europe, brought with them, in all probability, each the favorite breed of his own immediate neighborhood, and the admixture of these formed the mongrel family now under consideration. Amid the perils of war and the incursions of beasts of prey, they were carefully preserved. As early as 1676, New England was spoken of as "abounding with sheep."

These common sheep yielded a wool suitable only for the coarsest fabrics, averaging, in the hands of good farmers, from three to three and a half pounds of wool to the fleece. They were slow in arriving at maturity, compared with the improved English breeds, and yielded, when fully grown, from ten to fourteen pounds of a middling quality of mutton to the quarter. They were usually long-legged, light in the fore-quarter, and narrow on the breast and back; although some rare instances might be found of flocks with the short legs, and some approximation to the general form of the improved breeds. They were excellent breeders, often rearing, almost entirely destitute of care, and without shelter, one hundred per cent. of lambs; and in small flocks, a still larger proportion. These, too, were usually dropped in March, or the earlier part of April. Restless in their disposition, their impatience of restraint almost equalled that of the untamed Argali, from which they were descended; and in many sections of the country it was common to see from twenty to fifty of them roving, with little regard to enclosures, over the possessions of their owner and his neighbors, leaving a large portion of their wool adhering to bushes and thorns, and the remainder placed nearly beyond the possibility of carding, by the tory-weed and burdock, so common on new lands.

To this general character of the native flocks, there was but one exception--a considerably numerous and probably accidental variety, known as the _Otter breed_, or _Creepers_. These were excessively duck-legged, with well-formed bodies, full chests, broad backs, yielding a close, heavy fleece, of medium quality of wool. They were deserved favorites where indifferent stone or wood fences existed, since their power of locomotion was absolutely limited to their enclosures, if protected by a fence not less than two feet high. The quality of their mutton equalled, while their aptitude to fatten was decidedly superior to, their longer-legged contemporaries. The race is now quite extinct.

An excellent variety, called the Arlington sheep, was produced by General Washington, from a cross of a Persian ram upon the Bakewell, which bore wool fourteen inches in length, soft, silky, and admirably suited to combing. These, likewise, have long since become incorporated with the other flocks of the country.

The old common stock of sheep, as a distinct family, have nearly or quite disappeared, owing to universal crossing, to a greater or less extent, with the foreign breeds of later introduction. The first and second cross with the Merino resulted in a decided improvement, and produced a variety exceedingly valuable for the farmer who rears wool solely for domestic purposes. The fleeces are of uneven fineness, being hairy on the thighs, dew-lap, etc.; but the general quality is much improved, the quantity is considerably augmented, the carcass is more compact and nearer the ground, and they have lost their unquiet and roving propensities. The cross with the Saxon, for reasons hereafter to be given, has not generally been so successful. With the Leicester and Downs, the improvement, so far as form size, and a propensity to take on fat are concerned, is manifest.

THE SPANISH MERINO.

The Spanish sheep, in different countries, has, either directly or indirectly, effected a complete revolution in the character of the fleece. The race is unquestionably one of the most ancient extant. The early writers on agriculture and the veterinary art describe various breeds of sheep as existing in Spain, of different colors--black, red, and tawny. The black sheep yielded a fine fleece, the finest of that color which was then known; but the red fleece of Bætica--a considerable part of the Spanish coast on the Mediterranean, comprising the modern Spanish provinces of Gaen, Cordova, Seville, Andalusia, and Granada, which was early colonized by the enterprising Greeks--was, according to Pliny, of still superior quality, and "had no fellow."

These sheep were probably imported from Italy, and of the Tarentine breed, which had gradually spread from the coast of Syria, and of the Black Sea, and had then reached the western extremity of Europe. Many of them mingled with and improved the native breeds of Spain, while others continued to exist as a distinct race, and, meeting with a climate and an herbage suited to them, retained their original character and value, and were the progenitors of the Merinos of the present day. Columella, a colonist from Italy, and uncle of the writer of an excellent work on agriculture, introduced more of the Tarentine sheep into Bætica, where he resided in the reign of the Emperor Claudius, in the year 41, and otherwise improved on the native breed; for, struck with the beauty of some African rams which had been brought to Rome to be exhibited at the public games, he purchased them, and conveyed them to his farm in Spain, whence, probably, originated the better varieties of the long-woolled breeds of that country.

Before his time, however, Spain possessed a valuable breed; since Strabo, who flourished under Tiberius, speaking of the beautiful woollen cloths that were worn by the Romans, says that the wool was brought from Truditania, in Spain.

The limited region of Italy--overrun, as it repeatedly was, by hordes of barbarians during and after the times of the latest emperors--soon lost her pampered flocks; while the extended regions of Spain--intersected in every direction by almost impassable mountains--could maintain their more hardy race, in defiance of revolution or change.

To what extent the improvements which have been noticed were carried is unknown; but as Spain was at that time highly civilized, and as agriculture was the favorite pursuit of the greater part of the colonists that spread over the vast territory, which then acknowledged the Roman power, it is highly probable that Columella's experiments laid the foundation for a general improvement in the Spanish sheep--an improvement, moreover, which was not lost, nor even materially impaired, during the darker ages that succeeded.

The Merino race possess inbred qualities to an extent surpassed by no others. They have been improved in the general weight and evenness of their fleece, as in the celebrated flock of Rambouillet; in the uniformity and excessive fineness of the fibre, as in the Saxons; and in their form and feeding qualities, in various countries; but there has never yet been deterioration, either in quantity or quality of fleece or carcass, wherever they have been transported, if supplied with suitable food and attention. Most sheep annually shed their wool if unclipped; while the Merino retains its fleece, sometimes for five years, when allowed to remain unshorn.

Conclusive evidence is thus afforded of continued breeding among themselves, by which the very constitution of the wool-producing organs beneath the skin have become permanently established; and this property is transmitted to a great extent, even among the crosses, thus marking the Merino as an ancient and peculiar race.

The remains of the ancient varieties of color, also, as noticed by Pliny, Solinus, and Columella, may still be discovered in the modern Merino. The plain and indeed the only reason that can be assigned for the union of black and gray faces with white bodies, in the same breed, is the frequent intermixture of black and white sheep, until the white prevails in the fleece, and the black is confined to the face and legs. It is still apt to break out occasionally in the individual, unless it is fixed and concentrated in the face and legs, by repeated crosses and a careful selection; and, on the contrary, in the Merino South-Down the black may be reduced by a few crosses to small spots about the legs, while the Merino hue overspreads the countenance. This hue--variously described as a velvet, a buff, a fawn, or a satin-colored countenance, but in which a red tinge not infrequently predominates, still indicates the original colors of the indigenous breeds of Spain; and the black wool, for which Spain was formerly so much distinguished, is still inclined to break out occasionally in the legs and ears of the Merino. In some flocks half the ear is invariably brown, and a coarse black hair is often discernible in the finest pile.

The conquest, in the eighth century, by the Moors of those fine provinces in the south of Spain, so far from checking, served rather to encourage the production of fine wool. The conquerors were not only enterprising, but highly skilled in the useful arts, and carried on extensive manufactories of fine woollen goods, which they exported to different countries. The luxury of the Moorish sovereigns has been the theme of many writers; and in the thirteenth century, when the woollen manufacture flourished in but few places, there were found in Seville no less than sixteen thousand looms. A century later, Barcelona, Perpignan, and Tortosa were celebrated for the fineness of their cloths, which became staple articles of trade throughout the greater part of Europe, as well as on the coast of Africa.