SHEEP SHEARING 107 



cause of the high cost of living in Argentine they return 

 to Italy until the next season. 



Experienced shearers shear from eighty to one hundred 

 and twenty sheep a day, according to their size and the 

 wrinkled character of the skin of the various breeds; and 

 receive from ten to twenty cents of our money per head for 

 the shearing. The price is agreed upon by a padron before- 

 hand, and again regulated largely by the wrinkled skin. 

 Thus the shearers make from $7 to $10 a day. The 

 same sort of migration takes place in connection with the 

 harvesting of the wheat in northern Argentine. These 

 movements explain the curiously large immigration and 

 emigration figures for Argentine Republic, of which usually 

 only the former are published. However, it is true that a 

 large number of Italians settle in Argentine, and become 

 laborers, especially in the building of railroads, streets, 

 bridges, and houses. 



To return to the sheep: they were originally mostly 

 Merinos, brought from Australia, and the pure Merino of 

 course yields the finest fleeces of wool, but the fiber is 

 neither long nor the fleece heavy, so that on the progressive 

 ranches the original stock has been crossed with various 

 larger longer-haired varieties, like Lincolns and Shropshires, 

 which yield a longer haired and heavier fleece, though it 

 brings less per pound. The problem confronting them all 

 is to get the grade which will net the most money per head, 

 and it has been found that the fairly fine medium-weight 

 fleece brings more money than either the finer light-weight 

 high-priced fleece, or the coarse heavy-weight low-priced 

 fleece. The nearer a pure Merino, the cheaper it is to get 

 the sheep sheared. The wool is hauled to the coast and 

 sold either to the local buyers, or by the larger ranchmen 

 who can afTord to wait for their money, in Buenos Aires 

 or Europe, where it brings considerably more, as the local 

 men have to make a living and a good one, on the differ- 

 ences in prices between the local and the central markets. 



