WASHING AND SHEARING SHEEP 289 



times when they are easily injured, as when they are with 

 lamb. It is possible to handle them without injury, but 

 in rough hands they will suffer more or less harm. They 

 resist the effort to take them into the water, and if pulled 

 in by rough hands they will certainly take harm. 



The person who washes sheep may also incur some 

 hazard. The water may still be cold when the washing 

 season arrives, and when it is there is hazard to the 

 washer, especially when the number to be washed is large. 

 Remaining in the water for a long period at such a time 

 is attended with no little hazard, especially to those who 

 have become somewhat advanced in life. 



Until within the last two or three decades, the prac- 

 tice of washing sheep was very common. In many com- 

 munities it was universal. It was necessitated by the cus- 

 tom of spinning the wool at home and of manufacturing 

 it into cloth. The manufacture of wool is now almost en- 

 tirely relegated to the factories, hence the washing of 

 sheep prior to shearing them is fast becoming obsolete. 

 It is now largely confined to long wooled sheep that are 

 to be exhibited at the fairs. In some instances the wash- 

 ing of lambs of the long wooled breeds with water and 

 soap in the early autumn is practiced. The object is to 

 loosen the tangles in the wool, to add luster to it and to 

 improve the general appearance of the fleece. Long 

 wooled sheep are always thus washed before they are 

 shown in the autumn, and lambs are sometimes washed in 

 good flocks, even when they are not to be shorn. 



When sheep should and should not be washed It 

 would seem correct to say that sheep should not be 

 washed, as a rule, except when the wool is to be manu- 

 factured at home, or in the case of certain breeds that are 

 to be shown. Notwithstanding the objections to shearing 

 and transporting wools in the unwashed form, the prac- 

 tice of so handling it is now almost universal. It has be- 

 come so doubtless because the benefit that accrues from 

 handling wools thus has been found greater than from 



