WASHING, SHEARING AND MARKING 213 



numbers, identifying them with the name of the 

 breeders or the farm, as "Jones' 99" or "Wood- 

 land 174." 



Of course tiiese permanent numbers must be con- 

 secutive from year to year else the secretary would 

 find duplicates in his records. 



After the lambs have been weaned and are suf- 

 ficiently developed to indicate which are worth per- 

 manent record their records are sent to the breed 

 secretary and he records them and sends with their 

 certificates the association number, which must be 

 placed in the ear left blank for that purpose. 



Care must be taken not to make confusion by 

 using occasionally the 'wrong ear, and it is well to 

 use numbers of different size for this first marking. 

 If they are a trifle larger than the permanent num- 

 bers it is well, seeing that the ear will grow, and if 

 they were made a little smaller they would in time 

 become of the same size as the ones later put in. 



The writer is of the opinion that shepherds are 

 usually very careless in assigning mothers to lambs 

 for record and guess more than they should. 



The English system is to record the individual 

 rams and the ewes by flocks only. Seeing that they 

 have achieved glorious results in the development 

 of breeds by their course it would seem presump- 

 tions for the American breeders to claim superiority 

 of method. The writer unhesitatingly declares that 

 the English system should be adopted on this side 

 of the water and sees but one objection to it, that, 

 perhaps, a fatal one, that in recording by flocks men 



