96 THE SHEEP AND WOOL INDUSTRY 



boy brooming, or the picker-up, should be made to sweep it all 

 together, leaving no particle of it on the shearing board. It is 

 a good plan to have a few wool-packs fastened up in the shed for 

 holding black wool and other odd fleeces. They can then be 

 kept by themselves till the end of shearing and baled up as the 

 classer orders. 



Canary stain is a stain found in Queensland wools. It is a pale 

 yellow in colour, and it cannot be scoured out of the wool. 



To ensure a clip being put on the market in an up-to-date and 

 proper manner, the pastoralist should give the classer every 

 assistance in his power. He should see that all dust is kept 

 down by a liberal use of the watering-can on the races and yards 

 adjoining the sheds. Sheep soon loosen and powder the earth 

 about a shed, and I have often seen sheep going to the shed 

 surrounded with clouds of dust. The sheep have been on clean 

 country all the year, and the wool is clean right to the tip, but 

 it is getting dusty and dirty at the last moment through want of 

 a little care. In the back-country, where water is scarce, the 

 ground in the sheep-yards and races cannot be kept damp, but 

 the sheep should be driven as quietly as possible into the shed to 

 prevent dust from rising. 



On large stations the sheep of different ages and sex are kept 

 in separate paddocks. Each flock should be brought into a shed 

 and shorn separately. This will make it much easier for the 

 classer, and enable him to keep his sorts even. If the sheep 

 are brought in, and shorn with old ewes and hoggets all mixed 

 together, it is almost impossible for the classer to get the wool 

 up in even lines. In most cases the hogget wool is worth 

 about |d. to id. per Ib. more than that shorn off old sheep. One 

 of the first things the classer has to do is to arrange the piece- 

 picking and rolling tables, and see that they are in their proper 

 places, as they are very often removed after previous shearing 

 and stacked in some corner of the shed. The next thing he has 

 to attend to is the placing of the shed hands. A good deal 

 depends on these men and the way they are managed. If 

 they get out of hand at the start of shearing, they will generally 



