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53o
Mississippi Historical Society.
of these respectable functionaries would ever again have appeared in that county.
The cotton raised here is hauled to Mobile, but in future the most of it will pass down the Chickasawhay, if the Messrs. McRea succeed in their laudable effort to remove the obstructions to its free navigation. Extensive orchards are found here of many varieties of fruit. Wheat is cultivated with success, and numerous herds of cattle graze on the broad, natural pastures that are found throughout the east. A worthy friend of ours, for many years a Senator in the Legislature, and universally known as Long Johnny McLeod, owns, we were told, some two thousand head. The health of the county is proverbial?doctors sometimes settle there but soon starve out. The country around Winchester struck us as being peculiarly adapted to the raising of sheep, with a view to the wool and the supply of the Mobile market with mutton. The soil is sandy and produces a countless variety of shrubs that sheep love to browse upon. The surface of the country is undulating, the wild summer grass grows luxuriantly all over the woods; the ravines abound with reeds, rushes and switch-cane, furnishing good and nutritious food throughout the winter, and the wornout -and deserted fields supply the short pasturage upon which sheep thrive so well.. Why should not wool growing be more profitable in this region than at the north? There the breeder must own or rent every acre of land that his flock treads upon; he must fence, hedge or wall it in; folds and shelter are to be erected; forage for the long winter provided, and in despite of all this outlay and attention, distempers and murrains sometimes break out that sweep off two-thirds of the flock. Still the northern shepherds prosper, persevere in their business and realize handsome profits. Here one may graze 5,ooo.sheep without owning a rood of land; from the eastern bank of the Pearl your flock may roam from county to county, till it reaches the margin of the Mobile River, and never be off public domain, which will for years furnish an inexhaustible range; no shacks or barns are necessary for winter subsistence; our climate is too mild to require shelter, and there is no country in fact where sheep arc so free from disease as in the pine woods. A friend of ours, Colonel Denman, of Pike, who has a considerable number, informs us that he never had a
A Trip Through the Piney Woods.?Claiborne.	531
??case of distemper among them. We attribute this to the diy-ness of the soil and atmosphere, the saline impregnation of the grasses from the influences of the ocean, but more than all from the smoke of the burning pine or the vapor of tar, which the sheep constantly inhale. Why, then, under these circumstances, we ask again, would not wool-growing in eastern Mississippi be a
profitable business?
At Winchester we parted with our traveling companions, who had appointments more to the north; left town in the afternoon, crossed the river to the house of our friend Strickland, late sheriff of the county, who kindly entertained us, and in the morning started on our lonely journey; the day was dark and lowering; for weeks no rain nor gentle dew had refreshed the parched earth; a thunder cloud hung over us and its pent-up fury burst upon the heavy forest. The few birds that tenant these woods of long leaf pine flew screaming to their eyries; some cattle dashed madly across the hills for shelter, and taking the admonition we galloped to the left, a spot where fire or some long past hurricane had destroyed all the largest timber. Well was it that such a chance offered. The whole forest was in motion. The tall pines were bending their lofty heads. The few old ones fell thundering down, casting their doted fragments around us, and then the gale rushed madly on, plucking up the largest trees and hurling them, like javelins, through the air. The cloud was covered up with a pall, and long, lurid flashes, like sepulchral lights, streamed and blazed athwart it. The earthquake voice of nature trembled along the ground, and ere its running echoes had died away came again, crash after crash, thundering forth. But at last it paused; the clouds scudded along like giant phantoms in conflict with each other, and then, as if by magic, as we gazed transformed themselves into castellated towers and frowning batteries. The wind died off, but the scene around was appalling. Hundreds of trees lay scattered over the ground while here and there others stood splintered by the bolt of heaven and smoking with its fire. God preserve us from another ride through the spectral pines
in such a storm!
The day was now drawing to a close, and still gloomy and
lowering, the road had become gradually more obscure; we had