Moral improvers have calls to preach. I have a friend who has a call to
plough, and woe to the daisy sod or azalea thicket that falls under the
savage redemption of his keen steel shares. Not content with the
so-called subjugation of every terrestrial bog, rock, and moorland, he
would fain discover some method of reclamation applicable to the ocean
and the sky, that in due calendar time they might be brought to bud and
blossom as the rose. Our efforts are of no avail when we seek to turn
his attention to wild roses, or to the fact that both ocean and sky are
already about as rosy as possible—the one with stars, the other with
dulse, and foam, and wild light. The practical developments of his
culture are orchards and clover-fields wearing a smiling, benevolent
aspect, truly excellent in their way, though a near view discloses
something barbarous in them all. Wildness charms not my friend, charm
it never so wisely: and whatsoever may be the character of his heaven,
his earth seems only a chaos of agricultural possibilities calling for
grubbing-hoes and manures.
Sometimes I venture to approach him with a plea for wildness, when he
good-naturedly shakes a big mellow apple in my face, reiterating his
favorite aphorism, “Culture is an orchard apple; Nature is a crab.” Not
all culture, however, is equally destructive and inappreciative. Azure
skies and crystal waters find loving recognition, and few there be who
would welcome the axe among mountain pines, or would care to apply any
correction to the tones and costumes of mountain waterfalls.
Nevertheless, the barbarous notion is almost universally entertained by
civilized man, that there is in all the manufactures of Nature
something essentially coarse which can and must be eradicated by human
culture. I was, therefore, delighted in finding that the wild wool
growing upon mountain sheep in the neighborhood of Mount Shasta was
much finer than the average grades of cultivated wool. This FINE
discovery was made some three months ago[1], while hunting among the
Shasta sheep between Shasta and Lower Klamath Lake. Three fleeces were
obtained—one that belonged to a large ram about four years old, another
to a ewe about the same age, and another to a yearling lamb. After
parting their beautiful wool on the side and many places along the
back, shoulders, and hips, and examining it closely with my lens, I
shouted: “Well done for wildness! Wild wool is finer than tame!”
My companions stooped down and examined the fleeces for themselves,
pulling out tufts and ringlets, spinning them between their fingers,
and measuring the length of the staple, each in turn paying tribute to
wildness. It WAS finer, and no mistake; finer than Spanish Merino. Wild
wool IS finer than tame.
“Here,” said I, “is an argument for fine wildness that needs no
explanation. Not that such arguments are by any means rare, for all
wildness is finer than tameness, but because fine wool is appreciable
by everybody alike—from the most speculative president of national
wool-growers’ associations all the way down to the gude-wife spinning
by her ingleside.”
Nature is a good mother, and sees well to the clothing of her many
bairns—birds with smoothly imbricated feathers, beetles with shining
jackets, and bears with shaggy furs. In the tropical south, where the
sun warms like a fire, they are allowed to go thinly clad; but in the
snowy northland she takes care to clothe warmly. The squirrel has socks
and mittens, and a tail broad enough for a blanket; the grouse is
densely feathered down to the ends of his toes; and the wild sheep,
besides his undergarment of fine wool, has a thick overcoat of hair
that sheds off both the snow and the rain. Other provisions and
adaptations in the dresses of animals, relating less to climate than to
the more mechanical circumstances of life, are made with the same
consummate skill that characterizes all the love work of Nature. Land,
water, and air, jagged rocks, muddy ground, sand beds, forests,
underbrush, grassy plains, etc., are considered in all their possible
combinations while the clothing of her beautiful wildlings is
preparing. No matter what the circumstances of their lives may be, she
never allows them to go dirty or ragged. The mole, living always in the
dark and in the dirt, is yet as clean as the otter or the wave-washed
seal; and our wild sheep, wading in snow, roaming through bushes, and
leaping among jagged storm-beaten cliffs, wears a dress so exquisitely
adapted to its mountain life that it is always found as unruffled and
stainless as a bird.
On leaving the Shasta hunting grounds I selected a few specimen tufts,
and brought them away with a view to making more leisurely
examinations; but, owing to the imperfectness of the instruments at my
command, the results thus far obtained must be regarded only as rough
approximations.
As already stated, the clothing of our wild sheep is composed of fine
wool and coarse hair. The hairs are from about two to four inches long,
mostly of a dull bluish-gray color, though varying somewhat with the
seasons. In general characteristics they are closely related to the
hairs of the deer and antelope, being light, spongy, and elastic, with
a highly polished surface, and though somewhat ridged and spiraled,
like wool, they do not manifest the slightest tendency to felt or
become taggy. A hair two and a half inches long, which is perhaps near
the average length, will stretch about one fourth of an inch before
breaking. The diameter decreases rapidly both at the top and bottom,
but is maintained throughout the greater portion of the length with a
fair degree of regularity. The slender tapering point in which the
hairs terminate is nearly black: but, owing to its fineness as compared
with the main trunk, the quantity of blackness is not sufficient to
affect greatly the general color. The number of hairs growing upon a
square inch is about ten thousand; the number of wool fibers is about
twenty-five thousand, or two and a half times that of the hairs. The
wool fibers are white and glossy, and beautifully spired into ringlets.
The average length of the staple is about an inch and a half. A fiber
of this length, when growing undisturbed down among the hairs, measures
about an inch; hence the degree of curliness may easily be inferred. I
regret exceedingly that my instruments do not enable me to measure the
diameter of the fibers, in order that their degrees of fineness might
be definitely compared with each other and with the finest of the
domestic breeds; but that the three wild fleeces under consideration
are considerably finer than the average grades of Merino shipped from
San Francisco is, I think, unquestionable.
When the fleece is parted and looked into with a good lens, the skin
appears of a beautiful pale-yellow color, and the delicate wool fibers
are seen growing up among the strong hairs, like grass among stalks of
corn, every individual fiber being protected about as specially and
effectively as if inclosed in a separate husk. Wild wool is too fine to
stand by itself, the fibers being about as frail and invisible as the
floating threads of spiders, while the hairs against which they lean
stand erect like hazel wands; but, notwithstanding their great
dissimilarity in size and appearance, the wool and hair are forms of
the same thing, modified in just that way and to just that degree that
renders them most perfectly subservient to the well-being of the sheep.
Furthermore, it will be observed that these wild modifications are
entirely distinct from those which are brought chancingly into
existence through the accidents and caprices of culture; the former
being inventions of God for the attainment of definite ends. Like the
modifications of limbs—the fin for swimming, the wing for flying, the
foot for walking—so the fine wool for warmth, the hair for additional
warmth and to protect the wool, and both together for a fabric to wear
well in mountain roughness and wash well in mountain storms.
The effects of human culture upon wild wool are analogous to those
produced upon wild roses. In the one case there is an abnormal
development of petals at the expense of the stamens, in the other an
abnormal development of wool at the expense of the hair. Garden roses
frequently exhibit stamens in which the transmutation to petals may be
observed in various stages of accomplishment, and analogously the
fleeces of tame sheep occasionally contain a few wild hairs that are
undergoing transmutation to wool. Even wild wool presents here and
there a fiber that appears to be in a state of change. In the course of
my examinations of the wild fleeces mentioned above, three fibers were
found that were wool at one end and hair at the other. This, however,
does not necessarily imply imperfection, or any process of change
similar to that caused by human culture. Water lilies contain parts
variously developed into stamens at one end, petals at the other, as
the constant and normal condition. These half wool, half hair fibers
may therefore subserve some fixed requirement essential to the
perfection of the whole, or they may simply be the fine boundary-lines
where and exact balance between the wool and the hair is attained.
I have been offering samples of mountain wool to my friends, demanding
in return that the fineness of wildness be fairly recognized and
confessed, but the returns are deplorably tame. The first question
asked, is, “Now truly, wild sheep, wild sheep, have you any wool?”
while they peer curiously down among the hairs through lenses and
spectacles. “Yes, wild sheep, you HAVE wool; but Mary’s lamb had more.
In the name of use, how many wild sheep, think you, would be required
to furnish wool sufficient for a pair of socks?” I endeavor to point
out the irrelevancy of the latter question, arguing that wild wool was
not made for man but for sheep, and that, however deficient as clothing
for other animals, it is just the thing for the brave mountain-dweller
that wears it. Plain, however, as all this appears, the quantity
question rises again and again in all its commonplace tameness. For in
my experience it seems well-nigh impossible to obtain a hearing on
behalf of Nature from any other standpoint than that of human use.
Domestic flocks yield more flannel per sheep than the wild, therefore
it is claimed that culture has improved upon wildness; and so it has as
far as flannel is concerned, but all to the contrary as far as a
sheep’s dress is concerned. If every wild sheep inhabiting the Sierra
were to put on tame wool, probably only a few would survive the dangers
of a single season. With their fine limbs muffled and buried beneath a
tangle of hairless wool, they would become short-winded, and fall an
easy prey to the strong mountain wolves. In descending precipices they
would be thrown out of balance and killed, by their taggy wool catching
upon sharp points of rocks. Disease would also be brought on by the
dirt which always finds a lodgment in tame wool, and by the draggled
and water-soaked condition into which it falls during stormy weather.
No dogma taught by the present civilization seems to form so
insuperable an obstacle in the way of a right understanding of the
relations which culture sustains to wildness as that which regards the
world as made especially for the uses of man. Every animal, plant, and
crystal controverts it in the plainest terms. Yet it is taught from
century to century as something ever new and precious, and in the
resulting darkness the enormous conceit is allowed to go unchallenged.
I have never yet happened upon a trace of evidence that seemed to show
that any one animal was ever made for another as much as it was made
for itself. Not that Nature manifests any such thing as selfish
isolation. In the making of every animal the presence of every other
animal has been recognized. Indeed, every atom in creation may be said
to be acquainted with and married to every other, but with universal
union there is a division sufficient in degree for the purposes of the
most intense individuality; no matter, therefore, what may be the note
which any creature forms in the song of existence, it is made first for
itself, then more and more remotely for all the world and worlds.
Were it not for the exercise of individualizing cares on the part of
Nature, the universe would be felted together like a fleece of tame
wool. But we are governed more than we know, and most when we are
wildest. Plants, animals, and stars are all kept in place, bridled
along appointed ways, _with_ one another, and _through the midst_ of
one another—killing and being killed, eating and being eaten, in
harmonious proportions and quantities. And it is right that we should
thus reciprocally make use of one another, rob, cook, and consume, to
the utmost of our healthy abilities and desires. Stars attract one
another as they are able, and harmony results. Wild lambs eat as many
wild flowers as they can find or desire, and men and wolves eat the
lambs to just the same extent.
This consumption of one another in its various modifications is a kind
of culture varying with the degree of directness with which it is
carried out, but we should be careful not to ascribe to such culture
any improving qualities upon those on whom it is brought to bear. The
water-ousel plucks moss from the riverbank to build its nest, but is
does not improve the moss by plucking it. We pluck feathers from birds,
and less directly wool from wild sheep, for the manufacture of clothing
and cradle-nests, without improving the wool for the sheep, or the
feathers for the bird that wore them. When a hawk pounces upon a linnet
and proceeds to pull out its feathers, preparatory to making a meal,
the hawk may be said to be cultivating the linnet, and he certainly
does effect an improvement as far as hawk-food is concerned; but what
of the songster? He ceases to be a linnet as soon as he is snatched
from the woodland choir; and when, hawklike, we snatch the wild sheep
from its native rock, and, instead of eating and wearing it at once,
carry it home, and breed the hair out of its wool and the bones out of
its body, it ceases to be a sheep.
These breeding and plucking processes are similarly improving as
regards the secondary uses aimed at; and, although the one requires but
a few minutes for its accomplishment, the other many years or
centuries, they are essentially alike. We eat wild oysters alive with
great directness, waiting for no cultivation, and leaving scarce a
second of distance between the shell and the lip; but we take wild
sheep home and subject them to the many extended processes of
husbandry, and finish by boiling them in a pot—a process which
completes all sheep improvements as far as man is concerned. It will be
seen, therefore, that wild wool and tame wool—wild sheep and tame
sheep—are terms not properly comparable, nor are they in any correct
sense to be considered as bearing any antagonism toward each other;
they are different things. Planned and accomplished for wholly
different purposes.
Illustrative examples bearing upon this interesting subject may be
multiplied indefinitely, for they abound everywhere in the plant and
animal kingdoms wherever culture has reached. Recurring for a moment to
apples. The beauty and completeness of a wild apple tree living its own
life in the woods is heartily acknowledged by all those who have been
so happy as to form its acquaintance. The fine wild piquancy of its
fruit is unrivaled, but in the great question of quantity as human food
wild apples are found wanting. Man, therefore, takes the tree from the
woods, manures and prunes and grafts, plans and guesses, adds a little
of this and that, selects and rejects, until apples of every
conceivable size and softness are produced, like nut galls in response
to the irritating punctures of insects. Orchard apples are to me the
most eloquent words that culture has ever spoken, but they reflect no
imperfection upon Nature’s spicy crab. Every cultivated apple is a
crab, not improved, _but cooked_, variously softened and swelled out in
the process, mellowed, sweetened, spiced, and rendered pulpy and
foodful, but as utterly unfit for the uses of nature as a meadowlark
killed and plucked and roasted. Give to Nature every cultured
apple—codling, pippin, russet—and every sheep so laboriously
compounded—muffled Southdowns, hairy Cotswolds, wrinkled Merinos—and
she would throw the one to her caterpillars, the other to her wolves.
It is now some thirty-six hundred years since Jacob kissed his mother
and set out across the plains of Padan-aram to begin his experiments
upon the flocks of his uncle, Laban; and, notwithstanding the high
degree of excellence he attained as a wool-grower, and the innumerable
painstaking efforts subsequently made by individuals and associations
in all kinds of pastures and climates, we still seem to be as far from
definite and satisfactory results as we ever were. In one breed the
wool is apt to wither and crinkle like hay on a sun-beaten hillside. In
another, it is lodged and matted together like the lush tangled grass
of a manured meadow. In one the staple is deficient in length, in
another in fineness; while in all there is a constant tendency toward
disease, rendering various washings and dippings indispensable to
prevent its falling out. The problem of the quality and quantity of the
carcass seems to be as doubtful and as far removed from a satisfactory
solution as that of the wool. Desirable breeds blundered upon by long
series of groping experiments are often found to be unstable and
subject to disease—bots, foot rot, blind staggers, etc.—causing
infinite trouble, both among breeders and manufacturers. Would it not
be well, therefore, for some one to go back as far as possible and take
a fresh start?
The source or sources whence the various breeds were derived is not
positively known, but there can be hardly any doubt of their being
descendants of the four or five wild species so generally distributed
throughout the mountainous portions of the globe, the marked
differences between the wild and domestic species being readily
accounted for by the known variability of the animal, and by the long
series of painstaking selection to which all its characteristics have
been subjected. No other animal seems to yield so submissively to the
manipulations of culture. Jacob controlled the color of his flocks
merely by causing them to stare at objects of the desired hue; and
possibly Merinos may have caught their wrinkles from the perplexed
brows of their breeders. The California species (_Ovis montana_)[2] is
a noble animal, weighing when full-grown some three hundred and fifty
pounds, and is well worthy the attention of wool-growers as a point
from which to make a new departure, for pure wildness is the one great
want, both of men and of sheep.