228 SHEEP. 15, 



The time of falving is from Michaelmas 

 to Martinmas. 



The method is this : the feet of the fheep 

 being bound, it is laid upon a bier provin- 

 ciaily, a "creel" (about fix feet long two 

 feet wide in the middle twenty-one inches 

 toward the ends with four legs about two 

 feet long). The " falver" fits aftride of one 

 end of the creel, the fhoulder of the fheep 

 fefting againft his thigh -, its head under his 

 arm.^-He begins the operation by parting- 

 provincially, " fhedding" the wool from 

 the withers to the tail, leaving a flraight 

 open ' flied" or cleft in the wool the whole 

 length of the Iheep. This cleft ought to be 

 perfectly ftraight and clear at the bottom ; a 

 form which practice only can give it. It is 

 made by taking the wool on each fide in the 

 hands and pulling it afunder, forming the 

 c^eft with the thumbs. The fiffure made and 

 the wool preflec? down fiat on either fide with 

 the. hands and wrifls, the workman takes a 

 piece of ointment the lize of a large hazle-nut 

 (from a kind of difh formed out of a block 

 of wcod in the fhape of a cheefe), upon the 

 fids cf the end of his fore-finger, and applies 



