20 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER, 



JUIiY 20, 1833 



SHEBF SHISARING. 



Sir Jenkp, ol" the Nantucket Iiujoirer, gives us 

 the lollowiiig humorous account of a Nantucket 

 Sheep Shearing. 



TliL'' far-fameti juhilee, one of tlio few reniain- 

 ing [icculiarities of our sequestered coininunity, 

 has ivrthin a short period lost many of its prim- 

 itive charcteristics. Anciently, it v,as a j-astoral 

 anniversary, embracing more of labor than of di- 

 version — though with exactly enough of the latter 

 to refresh judiciously the hours devoted to toil. 

 Those who wielded the "sounding shears," to- 

 gether with the wool-gatherers, the owners of the 

 flocks, their families, neighbors and friends, com- 

 posed a goodly majority of the company present. 

 Occasionally a guest from abroad, dropped in less 

 by design than by accident, partook of the recrea- 

 tive portion of the ceremonies. Business was 

 duly seasoned with amusement — utile cum dulci — 

 pudding with sauce pro[ierly allotted — plenty of 

 natural solids, and scarcity of artificial liquids — 

 lots of mutton, baked beans, corn bread and pota- 

 toes, little pastry, and no rum — home made dish- 

 es in profusion, foreign condiments rare and lim- 

 ited. 



Jn those " good old days of Adam and Eve," a 

 cushion stiifTed with " cat tail" down, covered 

 with flaring Pompadour chintz, laid on a straight- 

 backed flag bottom chair — said chair, with three 

 others, alike caparisoned, placed uj on the floor of 

 a calash {caleche, Fr.j or one horse cart, and fas- 

 tened thereinto with rope yarns — said cart freight- 

 ed with aunts Bridget, Hitty, Abigail and Han- 

 nah, added to cousin Ephraim on the forebuck, 

 and the precious load all on the way to shearing 

 — was a luxury — my eyes! not admitting the 

 .slightest conception of ever being surpassed. Aunts 

 Bridget and so forth went out to the festival of 

 full preparation for keeping open house within the 

 rough-boarded shanty, or sail cloth tent, or beneath 

 the ample awning of a dozen bed quilts basted to- 

 gether for the occasion, which stood up in advance 

 of the range of pens, wherein were congregated 

 and segregated the diversely cropi)ed animals, 

 male and females, aged and juvenile, brought into 

 the folds of their respective proprietors.^ — Good 

 souls, and frugal — they carried also thither their 

 knitting work, and eke their patchery : for much 

 of their baking and boiling being already done up 

 beforehand, there was, between meals many a 

 spare moment for plying the tongue and the 

 needle — the which wagged merrily, while Ephraim 

 and his men in the rear ever and anon clipped off 

 the fag end of an old wether's fleece, and sent 

 the disencumbered quadrui)ed, bounding with life 

 and antic gambols, free for another twelvemonth 

 to roam and caper along the elastic sward. 



Then, as the sun dipped into Buzzard's Bay 

 away westerly beyond Tuckernuck, the broad 

 table within each wide pavilion, as if by magic, 

 sent up its fragrance of hot tea and gingcrbrjail, 

 and tart, and cheese, and dough nut, and green 

 peas peradventure, and indian pudding assuredly 

 — Hke a hospitable challenge and an offering of 

 incense into the nostrils of the passer by — always 

 welcome, townsman or sojourner, neighbor or 

 way-farer, to the bounties of the board. Sans 

 ceremonie, the hungry regaled at the nearest cov- 

 ert ; and the more delicate i-oved from lodge to 

 lodge, taking that which best fitted his a[)petite. 

 In short, no one went suppcrless — the finder, in 

 advertisement lingo, being generously rewarded, 

 and no questions asked. There was then an hour 



or two to spare, before nightfall ; and while 

 Ephraim and the elders were collecting and 

 bagging the spoils, young Peter and Jeremiah, 

 with the damsels whom they had been wont to 

 pelt with sheep's eyes, betook themselves to the 

 l)latform erst occupied by the wool pile. No 

 shepherd's " oaten pipe," nor horse's hairs drawn 

 across grimalkin's entrails, made cadence for the 

 admeasurement of their rigadoons. It was cross 

 over, right and left, down outside, and swing 

 round, all to the tune of Nancy Dawson, or Char- 

 lie over the Water, warbled by the united voices of 

 the happy and innocent girls — our gratulmothers. 

 accompanied by the solemn interininglings of the 

 mellow jews-harp, and borne up by the solid mon- 

 otony of sundry baser tones seventeen octaves 

 below. 



Such were some of the features of this season 

 of practical thanksgiving, in the oldenne tynie. 

 It was a sort of carnival, save that it savored 

 not of popish idolatry. It was a feast of fat mut- 

 ton, born, bred, and educated at home — an hun- 

 dred I'er csnt sweeter than your tallowless carcas- 

 ses brought hither for consumption from Waw- 

 quoit and along shore, by the blackberry mer- 

 chants and motherwort mongers. [But we would 

 here ])ijt in a word edgewise, of and concerning 

 the assassination of fat sheep; a word more by way 

 of question ; is it good policy, for those who 

 would witness the increase and multiplication of 

 their flocks, to kill oft' the best animals, and leave 

 the i)oorest to their fate, unsheltered as they are, 

 through the buffetings of a succeeding winter.' 

 Why not select the least productive of wool, and 

 let them acquire flesh by extra feeding, in due 

 time to be led to the slaughter ?] 



Alas, for the proneness of human nature to- 

 wards imjM'Ovement — whercfor simple innovation 

 is often mistaken — and change too frequently 

 fiincied to be reform! How have the customs of 

 our predecessors been alteied for the worse, by 

 their degenerate sons ! The shearings of this 

 generation have become merry makings wherein 

 a spirit of jollification predominates over a dispo- 

 sition to follow the patriarchal usages of the shep- 

 herds of Midian. Instead of the rational carni- 

 val — the simple flesh eating (after Lent) practised 

 at the banquets of our forefathers — there is a rev- 

 olution astir, which is giving to this epoch a char- 

 acter more like that of the Saturnalia of the 

 early Romans. — Now forsooth, though the orig- 

 inal elements remain, in some shape, they are de- 

 prived of their fair proportions. Once it was 

 work and play — now, play and work. It took 

 half a century for the world over the water to in- 

 form themselves of the existence of this remote 

 spot, and of the holiday whereof we now descant. 

 Anon, the curious, from amidst the unlearned 

 tribes of the continent, flock hither to behold the 

 sport — thinking to behold a fac simile of the an- 

 tique jubilee ryghte pleasantly described in the 

 outset hereof. But, good gentlefolks, you behold 

 but little of the original ])icture. In the mean- 

 time, the shades of false melioration have crept 

 over its chief outlines, and destroyed niBch of 

 the interest which whilom pertained thereunto. 



True, the operation of shearing — in the ab- 

 stract — in the back ground, if we may so speak 

 — goes on somewhat in the primeval style ; but 

 now, we see two-horsed carriages, wagons, chaises, 

 and even coaches with glass windows, and pad- 

 ded seats, and tassels behind, and insides comforta- 

 bly lined and stuffed like an alderman's — parading 



to and fro between the town and the arena of the 

 Miacomet! . We smell the savors of ham, and 

 egg-nog, and exotic fruits, and •forbidden liquors, 

 kept fo' sale in the outskirts of the great sheep 

 fold, as they were wont to arise in the days of the 

 great " nigger 'lection" upon the Common of the 

 Literary Emporium. We hear there the scrap- 

 ing of feet and fiddles at noon day, and the shouts 

 of revelry, and the uproarious greetings of un- 

 seemly prodigality. The boys of the town are all 

 agog for merriment of some sort — the why and 

 the wherefore they take no pains to understand. 

 One might as v/ell attempt to civilize a wild Arab 

 as to expect a civil answer or look for the perform- 

 ance of any duty, from an apprentice, during 

 both these custom licensed days : whether or no, 

 almost every lad will have his freedom to frolic 

 throughout one, if not both of them — and that 

 mother is fortunate who sendsyoung master Hope- 

 ful to bed before 10 o'clock, uncontaminated by 

 the experiences of this absurd holiday. Youngsters 

 from abroad, as well as many who are home bred, 

 unused to anything like a quiet enjoyment which 

 of yore distinguished and beai/.tified the occasion, 

 and which was intended to sweeten its accompa- 

 nying toils seem to imagine that they owe it to 

 their hopes of future manhood, to throw off all 

 the restraints of propriety, and suffer the most 

 impudent jiropensities of their nature to gush 

 forth in full stream. And hundreds of" children 

 of larger growth"arc too apt, without being at all 

 interested in the business part of the celebration, 

 to indulge more deeply in its festivities, to the 

 neglect of their regular callings, than is strictly 

 demanded even by the code of conviviality. 



Still, divested of these "improvements," which 

 are absolute excrescences upon the modes and 

 manners of past age, there is still much to attract 

 the inquirer after novelty. Enough of the relics 

 of olden customs are left among present practices, 

 which, added to the records of those customs and 

 the remembrance of what is now omitted, may fur- 

 nish a tolerably correct idea of the festival in its pris- 

 tine purity. Would that in this respect, the wheel 

 of revolution might move backwards and return us 

 to the hajjpy bosom of the last century ! 



fFroni the Ohio Farmer.] 

 WHITE WASHING TUBES, &c. 



I observe that the practice of washing the 

 bodies of fruit trees with caustic lime and water 

 is continued by many in this vicinity, notwith- 

 standing ex))ericnee has decided that it is most de- 

 structive in its consequences. Its first apparent 

 effect, upon a young and thrifty tree, i.s, to change 

 the color of its foliage, from a deep green to a 

 sickly yellow. The circulating juices become in- 

 terrui)ted by the overstimulus of the application ; 

 of course the young growth becomes stinted, blow 

 buds form in superfluous quantities, and the whole 

 tree puts on the apj)earancc of premature old 

 age. 



It is true, during the first season the barks 

 presents a smooth and clear but pallid look, 

 which, Iiovvever, indicates as much, a state of dis- 

 eased action in the vegetable system, as do the 

 hectic flush and clear skin in the consumptions of 

 the human family. It is also equally true that 

 during the second season the bark becomes dry 

 and rigid, is attacked with canker and large por- 

 tions turn black and slough from the healthy sur- 

 rounding jiarts. If the deleterious wash be re- 



