SHEEP HUSBANDRY IN THE SOUTH. 



a cucumber,) is reduced to the level of the soles. Two expeit men will 

 go thiough these processes in less time than it will take to read this de- 

 scription of them ! 



The closer the paring and clipping, the better, if blood is not drawn 

 An occasional sheep may require clipping again in the fall. 



Time between Washing and Shearing. — This depends altogether o-, 

 circumstances. From four to six days of bright warm weather is suffi 

 cienr. If cold and rainy, or cloudy, more time must elapse. I have known 

 tlie wool to remain in an unfit condition to shear a fortnight after washing 

 Tlie rule is, the water should be thoroughly dried out, and the natural oil 

 of the wool should so far exude as to give the wool an unctuous feel and 

 a lively, glittering look. If you shear it when dry, like cotton, before the 

 oil has exuded, you cheat yourself, and the wool will not keep so well for 

 long periods.* If you leave it until it gets too oily, you cheat the manu- 

 facturer, or what more often happens, you lose on the price. 



Shearing — Is always done, in this country, on the threshing-floors of 

 our barns, sometimes on low platforms, but more commonly on the floor 

 itself. The following cut represents a common Northern bam propei'ly 

 airanged for this purpose. 



Fig. 22. 



SHEARING ARRANGEMENTS. 



On the threshing-floor, three men are seen shearing — twc of them using 

 a low table or platform, say 18 or 20 inches high. The " bay "t (1, 2) 

 nearest the eye is divided by a temporary fence, one part (1) being used 

 fur the yarding of the sheep, and the other (2) for doing up the wool, &c. 

 The inclosure 1 should communicate by a door with another and larger 

 yard outside of the barn. Both of these should be well littered down with 



* It is aho very difficult to thrust the shears through this dry wool in shearing. 



} The room lor storins hay. grain. &c., which is always found on one. and eometimes on each side of th« 

 Olreshiiig-rtocr in a Noilhern barn, is provincially termed a "bay '—and the low division between this anj 

 4ie threshing flaor a " breastwoik." 



