inish; but that sheep husbandry, as an element of diversified farming, must grow from more to more. The rules that prevail on the great plains of the West and of Australia will not hold good with the snug farmer of the East. The profits from a flock decrease almost in a geometrical ratio as the numbers of the flock increase. Over-crowding is fatal to the ovine race, even more, perhaps, than to the human. The writer will mention, as an instance, that in his own flock, which enumerates some hundreds, the average annual fleece is only a little over five pounds; while individuals selected from it entirely at random and kept by themselves yield fourteen or fifteen pounds. · when we pronounce the name, "Southdown." So, when we turn to the little, much-perspiring, much-wrinkled merino, we ask, Was it the torrid sun of Spain, shining on his ancestors for so many hundred years, that makes him sweat so even under the semiarctic rigors of the Green Mountains? Whatever answer we may make to this and similar questions, it is certain that the fogs and rains of England have fallen too many centuries on her races of sheep to make it worth while for us to attempt to do anything with them in high, arid regions; and that the sun of Spain has shone too long and too hot on the merino to make it worth while for us to attempt to make the most out of him on damp coasts and humid lowlands. On a small farm a few high-bred, earlymaturing sheep sandwich excellently well The merino is the sheep of the Pacific. between the other products. The farmer In California and the Territories we find it scarcely misses what they consume. In returning with satisfaction and with profit to California, where the great, wasteful ma- the nomadic life of its ancestors in Spain— chines leave much grain scattered in the wintering in the foot-hills or on the great elds, the farmers turn in their "feeding wheat farms of the interior, summering on the heep," and they have a saying that their rich meadows between the double crest of heat-stubble must pay their taxes. This the Sierra, or on the sagebrush plains of the ith the merino in the central and more ar- Utah basin. The large, rangy merino ewes of 1 counties of the State; the farmer in the California have been a fruitful hive from tore humid counties of the coast might do which swarms have gone out over the Terriell with a few early lambs of the smutch- tories many hundreds of miles eastward, even ced mutton-breeds. Of the ocean coun- colonizing in thousands (since the complees, Mendocino, Humboldt, and Klamath, tion of the Southern Pacific Railroad) in nd western Oregon and Washington fall western Texas. ithin a climate sufficiently resembling that England to be adapted to its ovine ces. However occult and subtle may be those fluences, whether of the chalky soil, of the ort, sweet herbage growing out of it, of the sp salt air, or whether of some secret and ppy combination of all three, which, work; together for generations, have so merged mselves into the paramount forces of helity as to produce in a small, sea-washed ner of England the finest sheep's flesh own to civilization; yet when, at a distance thousands of miles from the scene, we sit wn with our feet under some friend's pold mahogany, and thrust our forks into rich brown joint of mutton, we recognize long-continuing potency of those forces Californians have learned much respecting wool; they have learned, for instance, that by cleansing it previous to shipment, by assorting and baling it in honest fashion, they could compete successfully with the best Australian XXX and picklock at the extensive mills of Cohoes and Lawrence. When they learn not to bisect the fiber by semi-annual shearings-cutting the value in twain as they cut the staple, though increasing the quantity of the total annual clip— they will make another great step forward. When they learn to provide shedding and a modicum of feed against the long, drenching rains of winter and early spring, they will make yet another. The cultivation of a large amount of yolk is not the worst thing in the world, if there is only a first class fleece to carry it. Show the case with certain articles manufactured me a breeder whose wool is tolerably yolky, or grown and sold by the Quakers. and I will show you a generous feeder, a good care-taker, and generally a man whose clips are in demand. Very high-bred fleeces are objectionable to the manufacturer on account of their heavy shrinkage in the scouring-tub; but he is tolerably certain at the end of the process to find a wellconditioned, deep-grown staple, true and sound. On the part of those who buy wool at first hands, there is often a lack of discrimination in favor of really meritorious clips which is discouraging to the pains-taking grower. In the large Eastern cities, buyers go around with a book of tables showing percentages of loss in scouring, etc., and each clip is sampled and tested by strict methods, and bought on its individual merits. Pacific Coast manufacturers and buyers should assume metropolitan ways; buy every grower's crop for what it proves to be actually worth, and so keep it on the coast. At present, wool is too often bought on the general rep utation of the region, as "Douglass County wool," "Salinas Valley wool," etc. A single clip of a high type of excellence coming from a locality of low repute, as producing coarse, burry, quarter-blood, or the like, always suffers unless it may be when it reaches at length the discriminating eyes of the manufacturer himself; but he is too far removed from the grower to do him any good. There should be a system of county or local organ ization among growers, with a body of rules strictly observed, and a sorting-house in which the clips could be carefully graded, and each man's address attached by a tag of some kind to every fleece. This would serve as a guarantee and a conscience, as is re For breeding-ewes those should be selected which yield voluminous fleeces, a gener ous armful each of long, finely crimped wool, white or buff-colored, fine and soft to the feel, lively and of a high style, with sufficient vital force and animal heat in the body to keep the yolk evenly diffused along the fibers semi-liquid, pellucid and glistening. Above all things should be avoided those fleeces having clots or blocks of wool glued together by rain, then hardened by the winds, quiring a hammer to soften them; also, fleeces which yield too readily to the arid climate and lack of succulent herbage, becoming harsh, dry, crispy. The increasing use of sheep as gleaners and weeders of wheat-fallows, in which service they are often kept without water and on short feed during the dry season, gives the staple a tendency, which even the merino blood cannot always resist, toward deterioration and harshness, which ought to be counteracted by liberal feeding in winter. It requires a certain amount of moisture in the atmosphere to bring the fleece into a mellow and elastic condition; and this constitutes one of the serious objections against the autumn shearing. It is this aridity and dustiness which cause the British races to deteriorate more rapidly than the merino. Flocks of them grow gradually more and more leggy, the ens up between the hip and the flank, the wool becomes shorter, drier, and less lus trous, kemp creeps up the hips, and often the tendency of the English breeds toward premature shedding of the pelage-usually held in abeyance until maturity has been reached-shows itself in sheep comparatively young. Stephen Powers. ETC. PATRIOTIC Americans have been wont to congratulate themselves mightily over every sign of the schoolmaster's being abroad; but it is sometimes forced upon the more cautious of them that he may possibly be a trifle too much abroad-may be, in fact, sacrificing pretty much everything else to this same breadth. The cant of "want of depth' so generally directed against the "broad education" makes it necessary to speak cautiously in any connection where the words "wide" and "narrow," "deep" and "superficial" have to be used, lest one be misunderstood. Nevertheless, we will venture to point out the double-edged nature of this modern institution that is called "popular information," and is systematized in various organizations with courses of study, correspondence schools, even examinations and cerificates, and such paraphernalia. It is undoubtedly in excellent thing that he-or oftener she-who would otherwise know nothing of the fact, should earn from some cheap compendium the number of trings in a Greek lyre, or the name of Mohammed's econd wife, or the principal paintings at the Louvre; ut it is not education to any great extent, and it is a ity to have him get the idea that it is. There is really, ounting everything in, in press and pulpit and hool, a tremendous amount of influence now abroad these United States to persuade people that a leap article of learning is as good as a dear one. far as the wide dissemination of popular knowlge reaches those who would else have no knowlge at all, it would be rash to say it was not a bent. It may be more irritating to the educated than solute ignorance; it may produce a mischief-workconfidence in one's ability to judge of matters tirely beyond him; but, after all, absolute ignorte has never been over-modest about judging of te-craft, economics, or other high matters. Pope I not consider all sides of the question when he "Drink deep or taste not." But while we may grant that this "diffusion of owledge" is a step in the right direction for the orant, does it not contain dangers to those who for it might make the farther effort required to I something better? Do not many read comdia of information about English authors who ild read the authors themselves if there were no hcompendia? or the newspaper snippings from lity and scientific journals instead of the jourthemselves? or the journals instead of books? believe it was Mr. Lowell who said that when began to travel about in England he found we were somewhat unjust in calling the Ameritraveling public so much more a reading class the English; it is true that everybody in trains, s, waiting-rooms, in America, is reading news papers-but in England the smaller number who are reading at all, are reading books. Probably every one of us can name several acquaintances whose habit of reading the scrappy literature of the newspapers has gradually crowded out the taste of earlier life for books. The newspapers may have taught to read many who did not read at all; but they have untaught others to read books, or anything else requiring continued attention, and have probably prevented still more from ever learning. It is simply one of many influences in our community life tending to reduce all things to a level intellectually-to prevent any one's becoming very learned, or any one's remaining very ignorant. It is curious that a country which has always held it one of its dearest principles to produce mediocrity in political power and in wealth should have practically failed therein, and produced instead without trying a strong tendency to mediocrity in learning. It would be impossible to enumerate all the influences combining to push everybody into the shallow waters of knowledge, and keep them there. Children are brought up to read easy books, and, even in families of limited means, get so much of this light food that they turn away from stronger meat. The simpler classics-Bunyan, for example--they find very dull, and "can't understand" them, after having been kept constantly supplied with lively narratives of what Johnny and Jimmy did and said and played. Their text-books at school are made every year more easy and entertaining; every year teachers are more anxiously urged to make everything easy; the whole effort is to guard them against once having to rouse and bend the whole mental power upon any effort, while introducing gently and imperceptibly into them as much of correct information as may be possible. The dead level of feeble mental power joined with knowledge enough to preserve self-confidence, threatened by all these influences, is rather appalling to look forward to. It may easily enough be escaped by the simple rule of leaving the re-hashes and simplifications and popularizations to those incapable of anything better; or, to be more specific and more practical, no one should himself form any habits of studying subjects from second-rate sources when it is possible to do it from first-rate ones; nor choose easy ways to partial knowledge rather than hard ways to thorough; nor recommend, present, or permit the second-rate sources and easy ways to any one whose opportunity and capacity he knows to admit of anything better. THE most characteristic trait of the present epoch in the political history of the world seems to be the passion for equality. Those who have a small share of the good things of life enter claim of as good right to a large share as any one else; and those who have a large share do not oppose any very solid resistance to the claim; many among the fortunate even admit it; every civilized government numbers in its Liberal party some who, themselves of a privileged class, are striving to extend more or less of their privilege to others--some from pure sense of justice, some for diplomatic reasons. The republican is apt to think -looking, for instance, at the situation in England --that there is only one side to the question: the existence of such a thing as a privileged class seems as much a sin against elementary human rights as does nowadays the doctrine seriously urged a generation ago that an inferior race-as the negro-existed, not for its own good or pleasure, but for the use of a higher one; or as that other, still lingering in practical belief though hardly openly held, that woman exists not for herself but for man. Only fanatics believe that the good things of life can be equally possessed by all; only the obtuse in sense of justice can view with complacency the withholding from all of an equal chance to possess them. Nevertheless, what we wish to call attention to is, the distinction that the most ardent philanthropist must make between the different classes of good things desired by man, before he advises throwing them all into the arena to be scrambled for in "fair fight and no favor." In England, at present, the great majority of people who are possessed of deer-parks and of lands capable of supporting them without work, are passionately hostile to the party that they think tends toward lessening their advantages to increase those of their needy fellow-beings. It seems rather monstrous to the impartial mind that a man should ask the laws to secure him not by free working of equal laws, but by special privilege-in a life of pleasure and ease almost unequaled on the face of the earth. But that, in the face of the blunders and dangers of democracy, he should ask to be secured by unequal laws in the possession of special powers is a different matter; it is by no means proved yet that the few, through selfish ness, misgovern the many worse than the many misgovern themselves through ignorance and want of self-control. The fear of the English earl for his deer-park is too much complicated with fear of ward. government to make it easy to determine which is the side of true wisdom. It is strange that liberal parties do not distinguish more sharply between the effort to abolish privileged luxury and the effort to abolish privileged power. The one privilege is indefensible; the other has, at least, much to be said for it. The Singer. SILLY bird! When his mate is near, Not a note of singing shall you hear. Silly bird! Sunny days Silent basks he in the light, But when all the room Pours and pours along the pane, (Ah, the small inconsequent !) On defying all the weather; Rain and cloud and storm together Naught to him, Singing like the seraphim. So we know a poet's ways: Sunny days, Silent he In his fine serenity; He will pipe beneath the cloud; Sings his heart out, as to say,"It may be She will hear and come to me." Newfoundland. 1 BOOK REVIEWS. Few books that come to the reviewer's table give as much information as the work on Newfoundland, by Joseph Hatton (whose "To-day in America" and "Journalistic London "are favorably known) and the Rev. M. Harvey, for twenty-five years a resident of St. Johns. The name Newfoundland suggests fogs and codfish, and a stormy, rock-bound 1 Newfoundland: Its History, its Present Condition and its Prospects in the Future. By Joseph Hatton and the Rev. M. Harvey. Illustrated. Boston: Doyle & Whittle. 1883. coast. Beyond this vague idea curiosity has carried no great number of seekers for knowledge, and the means of gratifying such a curiosity have heretofore been of the scantiest. Here is a book, however, that, gives a full account of England's oldest colony-so claimed from the attempt at settlement by Sir Humphrey Gilbert, in 1583. The reasons that have kept Newfoundland so long unknown are not far to seek, for they lie in those very fisheries that have, been her greatest treasure. For centuries it has been the custom for a fleet of fishing vessels to come every summer from the various European countries to take, cod, and these sailors have been interested in keeping the shore uninhabited, in order that it might be ready for their use, with no competing landsmen to interfere in their industry. So they have systematically made unfavorable reports of the country, and the owners of vessels have been powerful enough to influence the British ministries for a long time to place all possible obstacles in the way of settlers. In early times, the first skipper that arrived in a port, when the spring opened, became the Admiral of the port, and was the sole source of justice and law for the whole season. The fleet upon its arrival seized on all parts of the shore that it desired, including the stages and sheds built by the landsmen, who were always regarded as interlopers. No title could be acquired in land, and it was a misdemeanor to erect a house that was not ostensibly a shed for curing fish, or even to fence in a plot of ground. Here is an instance of the proceedings in such a case: "In 1790, Governor Milbanke discovered that a certain Alexander Long had, without permission, erected a house. He immediately wrote to the magistrate, declaring that 'it must and shall come down.' In vain did the builder plead that 'it was only a covering for his potato cellar.' The sharp-eyed governor surveyed the structure, and found, he declares, that it had a complete chimney, if not two, and lodging for at least six or eight dieters,' so that it was clearly intended for a human habitation, and must be pulled down by the sheriff." Skippers were put under bond to take back to England as many persons as they carried thence. It is hardly a wonder that the colony did not thrive with this sort of encouragement; and, indeed, its *hole history is a tale of patient, stubborn endurince of wrongs of every kind, and a slow, persistent vringing from an unwilling government of privitges that were denied nowhere else. The interior of the island was an unknown land nder this condition of things, and there is no record hat it was ever crossed by a European till 1822. Not until 1864 was anything like a scientific explortion attempted. Of the present condition and fuire prospects, the writers speak in language too Juch at variance with preconceived ideas of Newundland not to seem a trifle over-colored. Still, ith all political rights now recognized, with valuae industries in copper and coal mining and in agculture to supplement the fisheries, with a railroad ilt and another in course of construction, with a >pulation of more than 200,000 and a city of 30,o, there seems to be no good reason to doubt that is, the oldest and yet in many ways the youngest British colonies, has fair prospects before her. To literary excellence the book makes but small etension, the style for the most part being the sim: statement of fact. There are illustrations, abunnt tables of statistics, and a full index. Altogether book will answer all reasonable requirements of se wishing to learn about Newfoundland. Briefer Notice. Perhaps the best way to give an idea of the scope of Mr. Adams's Handbook of English Authors,1 "intended simply for every-day use, when reference to larger works of the kind may not be convenient," is by quoting a name or two: Wilde, Oscar. 1856.- Locke, John. 1632-1794. -Philosopher. Author of the famous Essay on the Understanding, a work of great penetration and power. See Life by Fox-Bourne, and Locke, by T. Fowler in Eng. Men of Letters. Publisher, Appleton. 66 It is a little difficult to understand Mr. Adams's definition of an "English author." Rationally, that would mean a writer of English, or an Englishman that writes. The first would include American writers, as Mr. Adams does not; the second would not include Scotch and Irish writers, as he does. The first definition would have made the book more useful to American readers, even with some increase in bulk, and might have been expected in a book compiled and published by Americans for American use. Mr. John Esten Cooke, in his account of a visit to Washington Irving at Sunnyside, in 1858, which is one of the pleasant features of the present volume, tells of a man that said of Irving: A great author, sir, a very great author! I consider him national property, and, being near Sunnyside lately, I called to get my dividend."- -Pen Pictures of Early Victorian Authors 2 is compiled for the purpose of giving each reader his dividend in Bulwer, Lord Beaconsfield, Macaulay, Charlotte Bronté, Washington Irving, Poe, and Harriet Martineau. The reader's approval of the book depends on his recognition of the "dividend" principle. That we have a right to know something of the life and character of the man that seeks to influence us by his writings is very certain; but it is not so certain that the public has a right to go so far as the well-bred eavesdroppers 'to whom Mr. Shepard sometimes introduces us occasionally do into the penetralia of an author's do. mestic life. They seat us opposite the great man at table, make us note the cut of his waist-coat and the manner in which he handles his fork, and allow us to listen, as far as memory serves, to the chance gossip over the sherry and walnuts. More than this, should the poor man chance to have any domestic difficulty, both sides of the quarrel are given in the minutest detail, even down to scenes in which the lady appears in her night-dress, and we are called upon to judge between husband and wife. All this, it must be confessed, is interesting reading, |