90 SHEEP BATHS. 



The wool is obtained from the bodies of the sheep by 

 tearing or shearing. The first plan is limited to some of the 

 northern Highlands, where the sheep have a peculiar coat, 

 half wool and half coarse hair, which separates- when the old 

 wool rises from the skin and can be pulled off, leaving the 

 hair firmly implanted. Sheep are ready for shearing in the 

 months of May and June, but there is a considerable differ- 

 ence according to the breed, season, climate, &c. The 

 weather must be warm enough to ensure that the winter's 

 coat is shedding fast, and an early spring naturally leads to 

 an early shearing time. Sheep to be shorn are washed in a 

 pool or running stream, and, for the comfort of the men 

 engaged in washing the sheep as for the benefit of the sheep 

 themselves, a proper bath should be constructed. The good 

 sheep baths are too few in number, and I therefore draw 

 attention here to a bath which I described in the 4th 

 volume of the Edinburgh Veterinary Review : 



Every sheep-farmer will certainly find it to his interest, 

 wherever a stream runs through or near his farm, to con- 

 struct a bath, such as I have much pleasure in drawing 

 attention to. A professional visit at Court Hill, tenanted by 

 an enterprising and most successful farmer, Mr Simpson, 

 afforded me an opportunity of admiring a contrivance, which 

 I think it is to the interest of many to be made public. I 

 made a sketch at the time, and have therefore the advantage 

 of illustrating my description by a drawing, which will 

 materially aid the reader in understanding the plan of the 

 bath, and in having a similar one constructed. 



Mr Simpson occupies one of the hilly farms on the Duke 

 of Roxburgh's estate in Berwickshire, and is in a district 

 famed for the many streams, teeming with delicious trout, 

 and whose waters flow into the river Tweed. It is not 

 unimportant to mention, that the annual sheep-dipping with 



