6 The Financial Aspect of Sheep-washing, [april, 



of Suffolk, Essex, Herts, Bucks, Middlesex, Oxford, Berks, 

 Wilts, Hants, and Somerset. 



(c) Washing little done or not at all. — This includes two 

 small districts — the extreme S.W., viz., Devon and Corn- 

 wall, and the County of Surrey. 



Now, on reference to a geological map, it will be seen 

 that a large portion of the districts (b) and (c) lies on the 

 Chalk, and the paucity of water on this formation, and its 

 extreme hardness where found, provides one likely reason 

 why washing is so little practised, as indeed was 

 explained to the writer in the case of Surrey. It will not, 

 however, explain why washing is so little practised in Devon 

 and Cornwall. In the report above referred to, washing is 

 specifically described as becoming a decreasing practice in 

 the counties of Cambridge, Herts, Norfolk, and Oxford. 



In Scotland practically the opposite is the case to what 

 was found in England. With the exception of a district in 

 the South, bounded by a line running parallel to the 

 Border, and some 20 or 30 miles from it, and another small 

 district in the extreme North, including Caithness, Suther- 

 landshire, Ross and Cromarty, the great bulk of Scotland 

 shears its sheep in the unwashed condition. 



The districts where (a) " Washing is Generally Practised " 

 are two — the extreme North — Caithness and Sutherlandshire, 

 and in the South, Berwick and Dumfries (except Blackfaced 

 sheep), while (b) where "About half the wool is washed" 

 includes districts bordering on the two mentioned under (a), 

 viz., Ross and Cromarty in the North, and Haddington, Rox- 

 burgh, and Kirkcudbright in the South. 



The same report places the percentage of unwashed wool 

 in the total clip for Great Britain at 28 per cent., i.e., 952,000 

 fleeces unwashed, out of a total of 3,348,000 fleeces, but it 

 adds that the general impression given by an examination 

 of the growers' returns would suggest that the proportion 

 of unwashed wool is larger than is thus indicated. There is 

 evidence of a tendency in recent years to discontinue the 

 practice of washing." 



In the Agricultural Gazette published as recently as last 

 summer (1908) there was an editorial article on "Sheep 

 Washing," from which the following is taken. " Not many 

 years ago ' unwashed ' was an exceptional description of 



