WASHING OF SHEEP. 
The lesser or pinnatifid species, Senediera pin- 
natyfida, called by Linneus Lepidium didymum, 
and by Smith Coronopus didyma, grows on rubbly 
spots and waste grounds near the sea in the south 
of England. Its root is annual, small, and fibrous; 
its habit is similar to that of the common species; 
its stems are procumbent, branched, leafy, finely 
hairy, and a foot or more in length; its leaves 
are deeply pinnatifid, smooth, and flat; its 
flowers come out in clusters opposite the leaves, 
and are numerous, small, and white, and bloom 
in July and August; and its pouches are dis- 
tinctly two-lobed and turgid. 
WARTWORT. See EupHorsia. 
WASHING OF SHEEP. The cleansing of 
sheep from coarse dirt upon their fleece, pre- 
paratorily to their being shorn. On some hill 
farms, this process is omitted; and on others, 
where the flocks are very large, it is performed 
simply by compelling the sheep to swim three or 
four times across astream; but on select hill 
farms, and on most large farms of the mixed 
husbandry, it is commonly done in some such 
manner as the following :—The washing pool may 
be made in any part of a rivulet which is deep 
enough to take a man at least mid thigh. The 
bed of the rivulet must be pebbly, and not 
muddy; and this character it will possess if a 
gentle current passes through the pool. If no 
suitable rivulet be near, a pool must be made by 
damming. The sheep must be brought to one of 
the banks of the pool, so that, when they are 
removed from the water, they may have grassy 
ground to stand upon, in order that they may 
keep themselves clean. At least three and at 
most five men will be necessary to stand in the 
water, so arranged that the first who operates 
shall be lowest down the stream, and the last 
| shall be the shepherd or chiefly responsible per- 
son himself; and there should be plenty of hands 
to keep the sheep near the edge of the water, as 
the ewes have a strong desire to wander away in 
search of their lambs, and require to be restrain- 
ed; and a piece of the ground also may be netted 
or hurdled in, to keep all from wandering. Every 
thing being thus prepared, the first man at the 
water’s edge gets a sheep brought towards him; 
and this he seizes and pulls into the water, and 
immediately turns over on its back, holding the 
arm of the foreleg with the left hand, and grasping 
a portion of the wool at the side of the head with 
his right. He swings the sheep in the water, turn- 
ing it over on its one side, and then on its other ; 
and at the same time he pulls it gently backwards 
and forwards, from and to him, at every suc- 
cessive turning. In this process the wool waves 
up and down in the direction-of the length of the 
body, and swirls round the body first in one 
direction, and then in another. He then hands 
the sheep to the next washer, who repeats the 
same operation; and he to the next, till the 
shepherd gets it, who, after feeling the skin with 
his hand, and judging by the clear state of the 
WASP. 615 
water, of the cleanly state of the animal, dips it 
over the head, and turns it gently over on its 
feet, and assists it up the grassy bank. The 
sheep stands for a while dripping and wobegone; 
but at length, twirling its wool like a mop, and 
making the spray fly from it in a shower, it for- 
gets the rough handling it has passed through, 
and crops the green herbage in contentment. 
By this operation, the body being in an inverted 
position, the skin and wool of the sheep are 
cleaned, as if they had been washed with.soap 
and water; and, in fact, they have been so 
washed, for the oil or yolk of wool presents simi- 
lar chemical components to soap. The surface 
of the water may be seen covered with greasy 
matter and filth, which are carried away gra- 
dually by the current. The washed sheep are 
put, till they are shorn, into a clean grass field, 
where they cannot dirty their wool under banks 
of earth. 
A wash-dike, in many instances, is formed for 
the use of a whole district, and let out for a 
small sum per score; and either in this case, or 
upon a large farm, it may possess higher facili- 
ties than in the simple plan which we have no- 
ticed,—and, in particular, there may be a flocd- 
gate in the middle of the dam to regulate the 
accumulation and flow of water, a pen for the 
sheep before the washing, a fenced path to direct 
and confine their ascent up the bank after the 
washing, a channel and parapet for the process of 
washing, and suitable accommodation for the 
work-people and their clothes and implements. 
—The process each day ought to terminate be- 
fore three o’clock in the afternoon, so that all the 
sheep may have time to become somewhat dry 
and warm before the cool of the evening. Wa- 
ter containing any calcareous impregnation is 
unsuitable on account of rendering the wool 
rough and brittle; and water of any kind popu- 
larly called hard will not clean so well as any 
kind of pure soft water.—Some good judges think 
that the whole process would be much more effi- 
ciently and economically done by first immersing 
the sheep in a tub of blood-warm water till their 
fleece should become softened, and then rapidly 
and sousingly washing them in a pool; and Bake- 
well, who was one of these, maintains, “that the 
keeping of the animal a sufficiently long time in 
the water endangers its health,—that fleeces of 
a close pile cannot be cleansed by the usual mode 
of washing,—and that the extra labour required 
to wash sheep in tubs with warm water would 
be amply repaid, were the first and second wash- 
ings carried out and applied as manure, the 
quantity of rich animal soap which it contains 
making it one of the most fertilizing applications 
which can possibly be used.” 
WASP,—scientifically Vespa. A genus of in- 
sects of the diplopterous family of hymenoptera. 
The antenne have thirteen distinct joints, and 
have an elongated, pointed termination; the 
mandibles are strong and dentated, hardly longer 
