A Treatise on Sheep:: The Best Means for their Improvement, General Management, and the Treatment of their Diseases.Blacklock, Ambrose
Science
A Treatise on Sheep:: The Best Means for their Improvement, General Management, and the Treatment of their Diseases.
Blacklock, Ambrose
Sheep
surrounding circumstances, which would, were the variations abrupt,
speedily destroy it. The reason why a race of animals occasionally
thrives so well in a country to which it may be removed, appears to
lie in its being suited, I may say, accidentally, by peculiar
conformation, to the temperature to which it is transplanted. There
are some happy climates where, introduce what animals you will, no
matter how stunted they are, or how different the degree of warmth may
be, their offspring will thrive, proving large and vigorous, and every
way worthy of being placed at the head of its species. These are,
however, cases where the transition is from an extreme of heat or cold
to a temperate atmosphere. Witness what Mr Dawson, the manager of the
Australian Agricultural Company, says in his private journal (quoted
in _Cunningham's New South Wales_). "Both the climate and the soil
appear by nature intended to produce fine wool, and fine animals too,
_even from the worst beginnings_. The latter seems a paradox. The
extensive range afforded to every animal keeps it in good condition,
and, perhaps, the natural grasses may have more of good in them than
their appearance indicates. However this may be, the climate clearly
has a wonderful effect on the size of all animals, even upon man, who
is universally tall here, though born of diminutive parents. From this
I am led to believe, that the climate governs chiefly, and thus every
breeding animal introduced here will attain a size not known in
Europe."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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