FINI] WOOL SHEEP HUSBANDRY. 129 
washed the next day in soft water falling in a swift 
heavy current over a mill-dam, or from an aqueduct, 
and the owner will find (perhaps to his consternation) 
that even his black gum has disappeared, unless, per- 
haps, on old rams and a few incorrigibly dirty and 
“oummy” ewes. Yolk of any form that will remain 
in visible masses in the wool after such a washing, is 
improperly there; and he who cultivates it pursues an 
illegitimate line of breeding. Few or none of our 
farmers wash their sheep thus, on the ground that 
buyers will make no adequate compensation for the 
cleaner and lighter condition of the wool. 
In the hard water of the limestone regions, wool 
washes much less cleanly. And Iam informed by 
experienced wool buyers that nuch more yolk appears 
in the same wool and sheep in some regions than in 
others. Ohio and Michigan fine wools are said to be 
ten per cent. freer from yolk than New York wools, 
and New York ten per cent. freer than Vermont 
wools.* I know by my own experience that sheep 
driven from the wheat soils of Onondaga county be- 
come lighter colored in Cortland county. Taken back, 
the same sheep again resume their dark color. 
There are some incidental and easily explainable 
reasons for a part of this. On wheat lands, sheep are 
put on stubbles and become dirtier. The heaviest 
fleeced flocks of Vermont, from which high-priced 
breeding sheep are sold, are sheltered in summer as 
well as winter from rain, and thus all their natural 
yolk is retained. 
There is another explanation of the difference in 
this particular between Ohio, New York and Vermont 
* I am not sure that tis remark applies to all parts of Ohio. 
* 
