236 SHEEP FARMING IN AMERICA 



rest and coming to the open will call anxiously for 

 her lamb. As though a miracle some lamb will stop, 

 listen, cease to play and, answering with a bleat, 

 will come scampering across the ravine to her to get 

 his evening meal. 



Curiously enough the ewe, though she has seen 

 him a thousand times, refuses to believe that he is 

 her rightful offspring until she has applied her in- 

 fallible test, her nose. Scent tells her it is her own 

 darling child, and she tranquilly allows him to milk 

 her dry. 



SHEAEING ON THE KANGE. 



Shearing on the ranges occurs at different sea- 

 sons, according to the conditions and character of 

 the country. Usually on southern ranges it is be- 

 fore lambing; at railway stations where the wool is 

 readily shipped away. If, on the other hand, the 

 ewes are shorn upon their summer range, they may 

 be shorn after lambing. 



The shearers are roving groups of men, as needs 

 must be, possessed of iron muscles and great deft- 

 ness of hand. A good shearer will average 100 

 sheep a day, for which he gets from seven to twelve 

 cents per head. Nor must eastern shearers console 

 themselves that these men do exceptionally rough or 

 careless work; they shear on the average quite as 

 well as the common shearers of the eastern states. 

 Nor are their sheep as easily shorn as the general 

 run of farm sheep in the East. Many a careful man 

 has laid the foundation of his fortune by shearing 



