66 
Tagging and Washing of Sheep. 
Messrs. Editors' —As the time is approximating when the 
wool grower may expect remunerating prices, I think that a 
few hints, founded on my own experience, in reference to the 
preparatory steps to shearing Of sheep, will be acceptable to 
some of your readers. It cannot be denied that the neglect 
to attend to these matters, as interest and common honesty 
require, has subjected the American wool growers to much 
deserved censure from the manufacturer; and I will prove by 
an unquestionable witness, before I close, that we are more 
slovenly in the preparation of our wool for market, than any 
other people who have any pretensions to civilization, on the 
face of the globe. But I will forbear to censure, although I 
feel quite certain that no subjects could be selected, which 
would furnish so much ammunition for the discharge of 
broadsides. 
The great majority of farmers do not tag-their sheep at all; 
at least do nothing more than merely cut off the distinct locks, 
and largest lumps of excrement. This is performed some¬ 
times at the period of washing, but more frequently neglected 
until shearing. Those who manage in this way, if they have 
a surplus of wool beyond family consumption, subject them¬ 
selves to much censure; for the reason, the manufacturer ex¬ 
pects of the wool grower that a portion of the wool about the 
dock and flanks should be separated from the fleece, which, 
with the ordinary wooled sheep, is little better than dog’s hair; 
and therefore gross deception follows if it is not done. In 
consequence of the great neglect of this, arises very many of the 
actual frauds upon the manufacturer, by concealing all this 
trash, with the dirt adhering to it, inside of the fleece, and 
then carefully wrapping an extra quantity of twine about it, 
in order to prevent detection, as well as to increase its weight. 
But aside from all this, there is an absolute gain to the far¬ 
mer by tagging his sheep well, if done at the right time, which, 
in all cases, should be before the foddering season expires; 
because, if neglected until after that period, the sheep feeding 
on young grass, will occasion many to scour; and if so, the 
wool about the flank is rendered one complete mass of filth, 
and of course, is a total loss; whereas, if done at the tim e 
mentioned, it will be taken off comparatively clean, and can 
be used in many ways for family purposes. 
The period I have chosen for tagging of sheep, is from the 
1st to the 10th of April. As early as fliis, is very necessary 
for other reasons than those already cited. The ewes are 
generally, with all fine wooled flocks at this time, heavy with 
lamb; and I remark, they should be carefully, nay tenderly 
handled; who does otherwise, has not the humanity of a 
savage. The easiest mode, and that which I have adopted 
for many years, is to place the sheep upon a bench, resting on 
its rump. The bench should not be more than two feet in 
height, and a stool should stand beside it on the floor, for the 
tagger to rest one foot upon; this brings his thigh in such a 
position as to rest the back of the sheep on it, and throws the 
animal in a position of about 45 deg. After this, if it be a male, 
the first operation is, to cut the wool immediately about his 
water works, because, if not done, the wool being constantly 
saturated with urine, will cause soreness and sometimes ulce¬ 
ration ; sheep have sometimes died from this cause. If it be a 
ewe, the first thing to be done, is to cut the wool growing 
around the bag, and particularly all that upon it; if this is at¬ 
tended to, the lamb in its first attempt to suck, has no diffi¬ 
culty in finding the teats. Then cut the wool from the inside 
of the hind legs, and that below the fundamental parts; after 
this, the legs are held towards the tagger, which enables him 
to cut all that is necessary from the flanks and dock. Inas¬ 
much as with the finer grades of sheep the wool is short, great 
E ains is required to cut very close; if this is done, there will 
e less waste in manufacturing, and no necessity for going 
over the same parts again at the time of shearing. As it is 
impossible for the wool to be perfectly dry at this time, it is my 
practice to spread it thinly over the floor of the wool loft, and 
every few days stir it with a fork. 
It is difficult to say how much tag wool, in good faith to the 
manufacturer, and m accordance with strict honesty, should 
be taken off. From about 1,900 sheep, I obtain generally 
about 500 pounds; all the most filthy locks are of course ex¬ 
cluded. I have had for a series of years, this description of 
wool manufactured; sometimes on shares, and again paying 
so much per yard for manufacturing. I have readily sold it to 
my work hands, paid mechanics bills, and exchanged with 
merchants for other goods. Having worn the article, I can 
testify to its being equal in strength to any purchased from the 
stores; but the great majority of farmers have yet to learn 
that it is a matter of economy as well as interest, to tag their 
sheep well, and use the wool for family purposes. 
Having said all that I deem necessary on this branch of my 
subject, I proceed to the other, namely, washing of sheep ; 
and I implore the spirit of equanimity and complacency of 
Mr. Pickwick, to preside over my nerves, while dwelling upon 
it. But on reflection, with a view to avoid all temptation to any 
explosion of indignation, I will not detail the scandalous, nay 
more, fraudulent manner, which usually attends this operation, 
with the great majority of farmers, and proceed at once to lay 
before your readers my own mode, and the evidence, that 
honesty and interest, in this matter, are more nearly connected 
than is generally supposed. 
At the eastward, it is common with many of the wool grow¬ 
ers to make use of vats for washing their sheep. This mode 
I have adopted. The size of mine is ten feet in length, six 
feet in breadth, and about four in depth. It is made of two 
inch pine plank, well secured at each end by gripes, which 
are of oak timber. About the sides are temporary platforms 
for the washers to stand upon when washing, and the water 
is conducted into it by means of board troughs; the fall from 
which is about 2 feet. Having two troughs or spouts, the 
washing of two sheep can be carried on at the same time ; du¬ 
ring which, two others are put into the vat for the purpose of 
soairing. The object of this is to loosen the dirt; for, by so 
doing, It more readily separates from the wool. The other 
advantages of this mode are these: a man can stand beside 
a vat—for it is wholly unnecessary for him to get into it—and 
wash all day, whereas, if he is up to his waist in a pool, an 
hour is about as long as he can endure the cold; the water 
falling the distance above mentioned, removes the dirt much 
sooner than by squeezing; the water in a vat is all the while 
pure, in a pool it is always rily; two active men, with one oth¬ 
er to hand sheep, will wash 400 in a day. 
There are few streams but that afford a needful supply of 
water, and also a sufficient fall. Where the latter is not the 
case, it is only necessary to excavate a place on the margin 
of the stream sufficient for the admission of the vat and plat¬ 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
forms; for a fall is of the greatest consequence, as without it, it 
ts impossible to gain the full advantage to be derived from 
vats; in fact, it is out of the question to make wool white and 
clean by squeezing, unless a much longer time is taken than 
US tuv ant ^ a * ter t * lc £ re ? test pains, its aspect is dingy. 
The cost of my vat, including all its appendages, was not 
quit&nme dollars. Now, I will recommend, if so small an ex¬ 
pense deters any individual from being sole proprietor of one, 
that farmers club in neighborhoods, fix on some eligible site, 
and own it in common. My neighbors have for years past, 
brought their flocks to my place for washing. I charge them 
nothing, nay, they are cordially welcome, for I am very hap¬ 
py in being instrumental in putting them in the way of doing 
the clean thing. 
I have uniformly endeavored to put my wool intended for 
market, in the best order with particular reference to cleanli- 
liness, although some have had the knavery and impudence 
to laugh at me for so doing; saying at the time, “ that the 
fleeces would weigh heavier if they were not quite so clean, and 
that the dirt woum bring as much as the wool.” Out upon 
such rascality to cheat the manufacturer. But query—How 
many are there who have not the boldness to say any thing 
aloud in approbation of this vile practice, yet do it from year 
to year!! As well might we sell chess for wheat, as fill our 
fleeces with stones. 
Some of us are honest from interest, and with others “it 
comes by nature." Well, it is quite immaterial from which of 
these sources I am influenced; suffice it to say, I endeavor to 
keep at least one eye on that sterling old proverb—namely, 
“ honesty is the best policy;” and its good fruits, I will now 
furnish you the evidence that I have reaped. 
My wool has been purchased by the Messrs. Lawrence of 
Boston, for the Middlesex Company, for a number of years, 
past, and such is my implicit confidence in their integrity— 
and very happy am I to say, that I have not yet discovered 
that it is misplaced—that it has been usual for me to forward 
it to them, and allow them to fix the value, which, in all ca¬ 
ses, has been equal to the highest market price. I will here 
insert extracts from two of their letters, in reference to the con¬ 
dition of two of my clips, and could furnish similar extracts 
from half a dozen more. “ In fixing prices, we have allowed 
you five cents per lb. more than we have paid others for simi¬ 
lar qualities, for the reason that yours was in much better con¬ 
dition than is usual." And again, in regard to another clip. 
“ Our sorts will turn out from two to three cents per lb. less 
than we have allowed for yours, on purchases of over 300,000 
lbs., but the condition of yours is very good." The gain, on 
the quantity forwarded, which the first extract refers, amount¬ 
ed to over two hundred dollars, and on the second, about one 
hundred and fifty. “ Who would not act the part of an hon¬ 
est man when paid for it so handsomey ?” some of your read¬ 
ers will doubtless say. All I shall say to such, is just this: 
the Messrs. Lawrence will be very happy to make you hon¬ 
est on the same terms and conditions. Try it. It is the only 
species of bribery of which I approve, for it leads to virtuous 
acts; other kinds tend to corruption. 
But, I have made an assertion at the beginning of this es¬ 
say, in regard to our preparation of wool for market, which I 
have said would be proved to be true, by an unquestionable 
vvitness. I proceed to do it, although I have some compunc¬ 
tions on the score of good taste, as the testimony is embraced 
in a letter which has already been published, some three years 
since, in the old Genesee Farmer, with some comments by 
myself. Your present list of readers, probably varying essen¬ 
tially from that time, as well as the importance of the subject, 
constitute my apology for introducing it a second time to the 
public. The information it affords will be new to many, I 
doubt not. I shall omit the letter I addressed to Mr. Law¬ 
rence, and only insert here, the queries. I will further state, 
that the distinguished gentleman is at the head of that mam¬ 
moth woolen manufacturing establishment, the Middlesex 
Company, located at Lowell, Massachusetts, which has the 
capacity to manufacture six hundred thousand pounds of 
wool per annum, and is now working up at the rate of 2,000 
lbs. per day. 
The queries addressed to Mr. Lawrence, are as follows: 
1st. Of the average of American wool, washed in the usual 
way, what per centage is lost by cleansing or scouring ? 
2d. Is German or Sa.xon wool better washed, and the gen¬ 
eral condition better than American wool? Please state the 
condition of Spanish wool also. 
3d. Ho the German wool-growers secure their fleeces with 
twine, or by twisting a band of wool? And which mode is 
most acceptable to the manufacturer ? 
4th. Is it not very common to find inside of fleeces-, shorn in 
this country, dung locks and trash of all descriptions, entirely 
useless to the manufacturer ? Of, say 100 pounds, what per 
centage is lost by purchasing, unknowingly, wool having this 
trash with it ? Please state some of the most glaring instances 
of frauds which have come to your personal knowledge in 
this way. 
5th. Are you not, in your purchases of wool, very much in¬ 
fluenced, in fixing prices, by its condition—whether well 
washed or badly washed—if so, would not the difference you 
allow, amply compensate, and more, the farmer for the extra 
time required in washing his wool well? 
6th. Will protection, or sheltering of sheep improve the 
quality of the fleece ? 
Boston, May 1, 183S. 
Dear Sir— Absence from home a number of weeks, is my 
apology for so long a delay in replying to your highly esteem¬ 
ed favor of the 2Sth March. 
In reply to your queries, I have to say— 
1st. The average loss by scouring American wool is 34J per 
cent. 
2d. The average by same process on German wool is 24 per 
cent. Some of the best clips in Saxony will not shrink over 
16 per cent, but. the wool is accommodated, (technically call¬ 
ed)—that is, the skirts and head of the fleeces taken off. 
Spanish wools are scoured with soap after being shorn; as 
we take them, they shrink about 10 per cent. The wools from 
New South Wales are of the Saxon family, the stock having 
been carried from Germany; they yield about 70 per cent of 
clean wool. 
3d. The wools from the most celebrated flocks in Germany 
are packed in bales weighing about 400 lbs. each—the fleeces 
never done up singly, but spread flat against each other— 
there is no twine about them. This mode cannot be adopted 
in this country for a long time, till which, let the fleeces be 
secured by a gentle twist of the tail—if your neighbors can¬ 
not make it out to their minds, let me refer them to my ex¬ 
cellent friends, H. D. Grove or Daniel Rogers, of Hoosick, 
who will relieve them at once. 
4th. The practice of enclosing in the fleece, clippings, &c., 
is too common, and should be discouraged by manufacturers. 
I have known six ounces of this useless stuff taken from one 
fleece. There is another practice equally disgraceful—the 
use of five to twenty times as much twine as is necessary. A 
short time since, I took sixty-six feet of large twine from one 
fleece. 
st fi- These cheating practices are short sighted, inasmuch 
as the clean thing” brings a price proportionate. We al¬ 
ways fix the price per pound by the quantity of scoured wool 
it will yield—in our purchases we frequently make a differ¬ 
ence of five cents per pound in precisely similar qualities. 
By adopting this system, the loss on our purchases is less, 
probably, than of some other manufacturers. For the last 
three years the loss in our stapling room on American wool 
has been li, per cent; this includes clippings, twine, dirt, &c. 
6th. I believe protection in winter is essential to the pro¬ 
duction of fine wool, especially in this hard climate. My ac¬ 
quaintance with wool-growers in this country is very exten¬ 
sive, and I do not know a single instance of fine wool being 
produced without sheltering the sheep. Besides the quality 
of the wool, there are many other considerations why sheep 
should be sheltered; and first, humanity —then the saving of 
life of old and young— avoiding diseases of all kinds, &c. &c. 
too numerous to mention. 
The art of growing wool in this country is becoming better 
understood yearly, and I believe the time is not distant, when 
we can afford to produce wool at about European prices. 
Your ob’t serv’t and friend, S. Lawrence. 
Do not the above facts, Messrs. Editors, bear me out most 
fully and conclusively ? It seems that the Spanish wool is 
first in point of cleanliness, next the Saxon or German, then 
Australian, or New South Wales, and last of all American! 
But let us inquire, where is New South Wales? Why it is a 
British colonial settlement on the vast island of New Holland, 
where also is Botany Bay, the place where England’s culprits 
are banished to expiate their crimes; and yet in that land of 
villains and scape-goats, it seems that, in cleansing their wool, 
they are more honest than we, by four and a half per cent! 
Oh shame, where is thy blush!! Yours truly, 
L. A. MORRELL. 
Lansing , Tompkins Co. N. Y. Feb. 22, 1841. 
fitters from % ill cot—$o. 5 . 
The Common Stock of Ohio. 
Messrs. Editors—I shall suspend any further notices of 
thorough-bred stock in this vicinity, till the fine settled weath¬ 
er of spring, when I can look over it with more leisure than I 
have at present at my disposal; in the mean while, having 
seen most of the. specimens of crosses and common animals 
that exist here, I will now subjoin a few remarks in regard to 
them. 
Of the horses, considering the vast number that are bred in 
this great and fertile region, I consider Ohio in comparison 
with our more Northern States, as particularly unfortunate; 
and I am told the farther south and west we look, the worse 
it grows, it being almost impossible to find there the real ster¬ 
ling utilitarian, the horse of all work —I mean such an animal 
as on a dry and tolerably level road, will carry one with ease 
on the saddle, at the rate of seven or eight miles an hour, for 
hours in succession, without fatigue, cr that will go the same 
pace in a fight wagon with wife and daughter by our side, and 
then changing to farm work, plowing with his mate on the 
average, two and a half acres per day, &c. &c., day in and 
day out, and keep fat upon it. The best animals that I see 
here, have been brought from the north, or are bred directly 
from northern stock; they are iff pretty good size, fair goers, 
and tolerably enduring; then there is the great Dutch wagon 
horse, strong at a pull, but without action, and so terrible slow 
in his movements as to really exhaust one’s patience in riding 
or driving him; and lastly, there is the fight Virginia racer, 
thorough-bred or nearly so, a pretty horse enough under the 
saddle on dry roads, but totally unable to carry weight with¬ 
out soon tiring out on a muddy track. They have endeavor¬ 
ed to remedy the defects of these two last, by crossing with 
each other; and a more worthless spawn, as a general rule, I 
think I never saw. They are big in the head, with long 
necks, large backs and legs, flat spongy feet, narrow chests, 
high sharp withers, fight carcasses, and cat hams. Their tem¬ 
pers are as vicious as a mule’s, and their gait neither a trot, pace, 
or gallop, indeed, I am at a total loss under what name to 
classify it, unless we call it a cow-heel shuffle. 
Having occasion to ride out into the country the first day 
of my arrival here, one of these choice nondescripts was 
brought up for me as an especial favor; and I must confess 
as I took a sharp cast over his extraordinary figure before 
mounting, I could not but give my head an ominous shake, 
and query in my own mind whether I had not better make 
use of my own feet rather than those of the ungainly quadru¬ 
ped before me. The hostler seemed to half divine my 
thoughts by my looks, and answered them by saying, that 
“ the hose was a tall ’un for comfort, and a screamer to go; 
and if the gentleman worn’t afraid of his being a little euros 
when he passed things, he did’nt know nothin’ about, he’d 
carry him mighty well.” I must confess I was a little stirred 
up at the emphatic word 11 af raid," and not understanding the 
precise meaning of the words “ comfort, screamer and euros,” 
in the hostler’s lingo, and having in my day been accustomed 
to mount pretty much all sorts of catde, from the slow ele¬ 
phantine cart horse, up to the mettlesome thorough-bred, I in¬ 
stantly straddled the “ tall ’un” before me. The third step he 
took was a stumble, that brought him down sprawling upon 
his knees, and would have sent me a clear somerset over his 
head, on to my own pericranium, had I not taken a stiff brace 
in the stirrups before starting, and held a powerful grip with 
my left hand on the reins. As it was, I recovered my steed, 
and kept my seat, and saved myself a bump on the head from 
the hard pavements, that is yet unknown in the vocabulary 
of phrenologists, and a pretty debut really, in the midst of the 
high street of a populous town, would it have been to make 
for one who has so much talk upon cattle as myself! The 
details of that ride would alone fill my letter sheet, and it is 
probably quite enough for me to say here, that the “ comfort” 
was such a shaking of bones and flesh as I never before ex¬ 
perienced, either by land or by sea; that the “go,” with lath¬ 
ering, puffing and blowing, was about five miles an hour; 
and the “euros” part, was an almost total refusal to pass a 
bridge, ford or creek, or consisted in ramping and viciously 
shying to the imminent danger of dismountinga careless rider 
at any odd object, such as a stump, a dead log, the flash of a 
bird, &c. &c. in the read. Indeed, it was here only that he 
displayed any spirit, for which, as I had got on the look out 
for his tricks, he had my thanks, thus breaking the otherwise 
tiresome monotony of my first equestrian essay in the west, 
and confirming a sort of previous suspicion that I had enter¬ 
tained of the merits of a cross between a fight mettlesome ra- 
