SHEARING-MACHINES 



631 



uniform ; and (5) no injury is done to the wool by making 

 double cuts, which shorten the fibre and increase the amount 

 of waste in manufacture. The Wolseley machine was the first 

 to come prominently to the notice of the public, but there 

 are now a number of patentees of machines which, differing in 

 minor details, are in certain broad principles like the pioneer 

 machine (see the Cooper-Stewart machines, Plates CCIII. 

 and CCIV.). Each machine is driven by a flexible shaft 

 making from 2000 to 3000 revolutions per minute. The cutter 

 is nicely adjusted to a comb, in the manner of the comb-like 

 cutting teeth of an ordinary hand horse-clipping machine, 

 and moves from side to side 4000 times per minute over the 

 comb, which rests upon the 

 skin of the sheep, and threads 

 its way among the wool close 

 to the surface of the body. 

 As the points of the cutter 

 are protected by the comb, 

 it is much less likely to cut 

 the skin ; yet the machine 

 does cut it if care be not 

 exercised, and the skin be 

 not pulled level. Before 

 the workman lets the sheep FIG. 51. COOPER-STEWART'S AUTOMATIC 

 escape, it is usually " buisted " DouBLE SHEARING-MACHINE. 



Or marked by a large iron Driven by one gallon of petrol a day. 



/ . ,. Costs ^25. 



letter dipped in hot (but 



not quite boiling) Archangel tar, darkened in colour with 

 a little lamp-black. As the wool grows pretty long, these 

 markings become first indistinct and then unreadable, and 

 paint or red kiel, after being mixed with water or linseed 

 oil, is rubbed on some part of the wool. The mark need 

 not be extensive in the case of Lowland sheep, as it 

 injures the wool to which it is attached. Paint mixed 

 with oil is less bright at first, but it is the more durable of 

 the two. 



After all visible and removable impurities such as dung 

 ("clarts") are removed, each fleece of wool is carefully rolled 

 inside out into a bundle, except in such cases as that of 

 Scotch Blackface wool, which is turned the other way. 

 The neck end is last rolled on, and, to tie the whole together, 



