m\ THE JOURNAL 



OF THE 



BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Vol. XVI. No. L 



APRIL, 1909. 



THE FINANCIAL ASPECT OF SHEEP-WASHING. 

 Bernard N. Wale, B.Sc. 



Lecturer in Agriculture, South- Eastern Agricultural College, Wye. 



The desirability of washing sheep before shearing is a 

 question on which the greatest divergence of opinion exists, 

 and the average farmer, after reading through the literature of 

 the subject in the agricultural publications of the last fifty 

 years, would probably be as dubious about the matter as he 

 was before. It may be instructive, therefore, in the first 

 place, to recapitulate some of the more striking statements 

 which have been made. 



The History of the Subject during the last Half-, 

 Century.— In the Royal Agricultural Society's Journal of 

 1855, John Wilson, late Professor of Agriculture, Edinburgh 

 University, in an article on the "Various Breeds of Sheep 

 in Great Britain with Special Reference to Wool," states 

 (page 245) : "It is the custom of the farmers in Devon not 

 to wash the sheep before shearing them, and the wool being 

 thus in the yolk or grease, is not so marketable as other 

 kinds which are washed. ... If the wool were washed and 

 shown in the same way as in other districts, it would be 

 readily saleable." It would thus seem that the practice of 

 not washing was then getting a foothold in Devon, while 

 in the remainder of the kingdom the custom was to wash, 

 even Scotch Blackfaced being quoted for washed wool in 

 the article just referred to. 



B 



