290 THE DOMESTIC SHEEP. 



wool, as it is here numbered, the higher the value of it will 

 be. And the more of the coarser wool in the fleece the less its 

 value, and of course of the sheep, as well as of its wool. 

 *the Merino sheep, in all its several varieties, is an interest- 

 ing example of the skill of the breeders by which these sheep 

 are clothed from the tip of the nose to the hoofs, with valua- 

 ble wool. There is thus a great difference between a pure 

 Merino and a grade. But by breeding up of the flock by the 

 use of the best selected sheep, chosen for this high grade of 

 fleece, it is evident that the special wool grower may in a 

 few years so grade up his flock as to largely increase the 

 value of it by the better wool grown. It will be a useful 

 study for the intelligent shepherd to examine carefully this 

 diagram of the skirted fleece, and apply the hints it will 

 afford to his culture of his flock. 



PULLED WOOL. 



A large quantity of what is known as pulled wool is al- 

 ways on the market. This is taken from the skins of 

 slaughtered sheep, and sad to say from the thousands of 

 sheep that are lost every year by the neglect of their owners. 

 The wool is loosened by the application to the back of the 

 skin of thin lime paste. This is one of the examples of the 

 detrimental effect of lime to the skin of a living animal, as 

 well as its usefulness in this special instance. The wool is 

 also loosened from the skins by laying them when wet in 

 heaps- one on another. The pelts of course sweat and 

 partly decompose as to the epidermis, which as has been 

 explained previously in this chapter, is the part in which 

 the wool fibers are rooted. The sweating of the skins in this 

 process causes the wool to loosen, so that it may be easily 

 removed, without seriously affecting the value of it. Thus 

 the market value of pulled wool may vary considerably with 

 the skillfulness or otherwise of this process of separation. 

 The wool of a sheep, dead of any disease, is materially re- 

 duced in value, and the more so as tho kind of disease may 

 happen to be. Sheep dying of any contagious disease, such 

 as anthrax especially, is frequently the cause of the infection 

 of the handlers of the skins or wool. The almost invariably 

 wool-sorter's disease, as it is called, is precisely this same 

 disease of which the sheep died, and is one of the most 



