SHEEP HUSBANDRY IN SPAIN. 
117 
social circle. As a recreation, it also contributes ma- 
• terially to health, advances intellectual improvement, 
softens the manners, and subdues the tempers of 
men. 
Flowers are of all embellishments the most beauti¬ 
ful, and of all the sentient tribes, man alone seems 
capable of deriving enjoyment from them. From in-! 
fancy we love them, and as this attachment increases 
with our years, it becomes a fertile source of comfort 
and gratilication in our declining days. The child 
no sooner walks, than its first employment is to plant 
a flower, removing it ten times in a day to wherever 
the sun appears to shine most favorably. The school¬ 
boy in the care of his little plot of ground is relieved 
from his studies, and loses all the anxious thoughts 
and cares of the tasks in which he has been engaged, 
or the home which he may have left. In manhood, 
bur attention is generally demanded by more active 
duties; still a few hours’ employment in gardening af¬ 
fords a delightful recreation, and as age obliges us to 
retire from public life, the attachment to flowers re¬ 
turns to soothe the period ol our declining years. 
In the growth of flowers, from the first tender 
shoots which rise from the earth, through all the 
changes which they undergo to the period of their 
utmost perfection, man beholds the wonderful process 
of creative wisdom and power. He views the bud 
as it swells, looks into the expanded blossom, and 
delights in its rich tints and fragrant odors; but, above 
all, he feels a charm in contemplating lhe precise con 
formation and mutual adaptation of its organs, and 
the undeviating regularity with which the various 
changes are effected ; before which, all the combined 
ingenuity of man dwindles into nothingness. For, 
while the simple cultivation and management of 
flowers is productive of much innocent pleasure, how 
immensely is that pleasure enhanced when science is 
applied as its auxiliary! The cultivator of flowers, 
on whom the light of science has just dawned, feels 
like one emerging into a new sphere of existence. 
A multitude of subjects previously unheeded, present 
themselves to his consideration, which, as he proceeds 
to contemplate them, diverge into successive series of 
interesting associations, and awaken in his mind emo¬ 
tions of pleasure and gratification of which he was 
previously altogether unconscious. The development 
of a leaf on the most familiar tree, offers a field for 
his observations, for he learns that it is destined to 
bring forth, nourish, and mature a germ, which is ca¬ 
pable of producing a distinct tree, that in process of 
time would equal or even exceed in size the parent 
that forced it into existence. He observes the leaves 
wither and fall in the autumn without regret, inform¬ 
ed that they have duly fulfilled their important func¬ 
tions, and that were they capable of remaining, they 
would only be productive of harm by exciting the 
latent buds into premature activity, thus causing them 
to perish by the inclemency and frost of the coming 
season. 
On such a subject, however delightful in itself, it 
is perhaps after all unnecessary to expatiate, for the 
•pleasures of gardening are scarcely communicable, 
nor are they derivable from elaborate treatises. They 
must be sought after to be duly appreciated, and once 
tasted, the mind will never become satiated; but, like 
the bee, will rove from flower to flower in search of 
delicious and nutritive sweets, extracting fresh stores 
of wisdom and pleasure from each successive object, 
till, finally, it succeeds in amassing that which most 
truly constitutes man’s wealth—a fund of knowledge 
of his Creator’s perfect works. W. W. V. 
Flushing, L I., Dec. 2, 1844. 
SHEEP HUSBANDRY IN SPAIN.—No. 4. 
! The season for sheep-shearing, in Spain, like the 
harvest and the vintage in corn and wine countries, is 
a time of great festivity and rejoicing, both to the pro¬ 
prietor and the workmen. A multitude of shearers, 
washers, and other attendants, are fed upon the flesh 
of the culled sheep, and it would seem that the 
slaughter occasioned by this season of feasting would 
be sufficient to consume the whole flock. 
The operation of shearing commences on the first 
of May, provided the weather be fair; for if the 
wool be not quite dry, the fleeces, which are closely 
piled upon one another as soon as they are taken off, 
would ferment and rot. It is for this reason that the 
business is performed in large spacious buildings 
called “ Esquileos,” which are usually so arranged as 
to receive entire flocks of twenty, forty, and even six¬ 
ty thousand sheep; and besides, the constitutions of 
the ewes are such, that if they were exposed, imme¬ 
diately after shearing, to the air of a bleak, stormy 
night, they would all perish. 
A certain number of sheep are led into the great 
shelter-house, built in the form of a parallelogram, 
four or five hundred feet long and one hundred wide, 
where they remain during the day. As many sheep 
as it is judged can be despatched by the shearmen the 
next day, are driven into a long narrow passage, 
called “ Sudadero,” or sweating-place, where they 
remain all night, crowded as closely as possible to¬ 
gether, in order that they may profusely sweat, which 
is to soften the wool for the shears, and, as the shep¬ 
herds say, “ to oil their edges.” By degrees, the next 
morning, the sheep are led into the spacious shear¬ 
ing-room, which joins the sweating-place. As fast 
as they are sheared, the shepherd carries them off to 
be marked with tar, which usually consists of the 
first letter of the name of the proprietor, and each 
subdivision is denoted by the part of the sheep on 
which this letter is placed ; and as this operation is 
necessarily performed upon one at a time, it gives a 
fair opportunity to cull out for the butchery all the 
sheep of the flock wdiich have lost their teeth. 
A man can shear twelve ewes in a day, or eight 
rams. The fleeces of three of the latter often W'eigh 
'in the dirt or yolk, twenty-five pounds, w’hich is equi¬ 
valent to those of four wethers, or five ewes. The 
reason of the difference in the number of sheep shear¬ 
ed in a day is, not only because the rams have larger 
bodies, are stronger, and have more wool, but the 
shearmen dare not tie their feet as they do those of 
the unresisting ewres. Experience has taught them, 
that a bold, rebellious ram would struggle even to 
suffocation thus confined under the shears; conse¬ 
quently, they gently lay him down, stroke his belly, 
and actually beguile him out of his fleece. 
The sheep that have been shorn are allowed to go 
to the fields, if the weather be fine, in order to feed 
during the day, and in the evening they return to the 
yard in front of the shearing-house, to pass the night, 
and if the weather be cold or cloudy they are shel¬ 
tered within. Thus they are brought, by degrees, to 
endure the open air, and their first days’ journey, 
from the esquileos to the mountains, are short, where 
