236 ■ AGRICULTURAL REPORT- 



SHEARING. 



Shearing should take place when the oily-feeling matter, termed yolk, has 

 so far reappeared in the wool as to give it its natural brilliant appearance and 

 silk}' feeling. The mode of shearing cannot be described here in detail. The 

 wool should be cut off evenly and smoothly, reasonably close, but not leaving 

 the skin naked and red, which renders the sheep very liable to receive injury 

 fiom cold. " Stubble shearing" and "trimming," i. e., leaving the wool long, 

 so as to give the next fleece the appearance of extraordinary length, or leaving 

 it long in places, in order to affect the apparent shape of the animal, are both 

 frauds. 



DOING UP WOOL. 



The fleece should be as little broken as possible in shearing. It should be 

 gathered ujd carefully, placed on a smooth table, with the inside ends down, 

 put into the exact shape in which it came from the sheep, and pressed close 

 together. If there are dung-balls, they should be removed. Fold in each side 

 one-quarter, next the neck and breech one-quarter, and the fleece will then be 

 ill an oblong square form, some twenty inches wide, and twenty-five or thirty 

 inches long. Then fold it once more lengthwise, and it is ready to be rolled 

 up and tied, or placed in the press. The improved wool -press, worked by a 

 lever, or by a crank, &c., does the work far more expeditiously, far better, and 

 with much less labor than doing it up by hand. Three bands of moderate 

 sized twine (flax or hemp) once round are enough for the fleece. It is fraudu- 

 lent to put the unwashed wool of sheep that have died with disease, or of those 

 which have been killed, or unwashed tags, into washed fleeces. It is also 

 fraudulent to sell burred wool so done up as to conceal the burs, without giving 

 notice to the buyer. The burred wool should be put by itself, so that the buyer 

 can open and examine it. 



STORING WOOL. 



Wool should be stored in a clean, dry room, tight enough to keep out dust, 

 vermin, and insects. If sacked and sent off to market, it is put up in bales 

 nine feet long, formed of two breadths of burlaps thirty-five or forty inches 

 wide. 



REGISTRATION. 



Flock-masters, anxious to improve their sheep by annual and rigorous 

 selection, have them numbered on the side with brands as they are sheared, 

 and in a register set down all the most prominent characteristics of each sheep. 

 The register is made by ruling a blank book into columns, and placing over 

 each the names of the characteristics to be recorded, such as "length of wool," 

 ' thickness of wooj," &c. The record is made by placing figures in the 

 columns opposite the numbers of each sheep. Figure 1 denotes the maximum; 

 figure 5 the minimum of each characteristic, and the intermediate figures inter- 

 mediate grades tif quality. This enables the flock-master to select the proper 

 sheep to sell, kill, &c., at any period of the year. 



STORMS AFTER SHEARING. 



Cold storms sometimes come after the proper time of shearing, and prove 

 highly injurious, or even directly destructive to the lives of sheep, unless they 

 are put into bams or under sheds. A dense forest, especially on the lee side 

 of a hill, is vastly better than no shelter under the circumstances. 



A fortnight after sheep are sheared the lambs should be dipped in a de- 

 coction of tobacco strong enough to kill ticks and their eggs in the wool. This 



