The Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Or.) 1862-1899, 1896-11-13
SHEEP sHEARlNG.
Expertness of Professional shearers
In New South Males.

Experfness OF Professional Shearers
In New South Wales.
Most of our readers would probably
think that to shear. say. twenty or
thirty sheep. would be as much as the
most skillful and industrious shearer
could do in a long days work. They
may. then, says Chambers Journal,
be interested to know what vastly
through the deft hands of capable
craftsman in the pastoral regions of
the great sheep-keeping colony of New
South Wales. Our notes have been
collected on the spot
The number of sheep a man can
shear in day of eight and half hours
is governed by several circumstances
over and above the shearer.s expert
ness. depending mainly on the class of.
sheep and the nature Of the country
over which the sheep have pastured.
OF all the breeds of sheep merimos
are the most difficult to shear In
the first place. they are very s'throaty"
that is, the skin covering the neck
lies in large. loose folds. so that man;p-
ulation with the shears is at best tedi-
Gus and troublesome Then, again,
they possess what is technically known
as the points of the breed-they are
wooled to the tip of tie nose and down
the legs to the hoofs; 1t is these So
called points" that take up time.
Sheep grazing over pastures where
burs, grass seeds, twigs, ETC., are nu-
merous, or over coarse, sandy coun-
try, pick up in their fleece quantities
of foreign matter that blunt the shears
during the process of shearing. 1t will
at once be seen that this especially ap-
plies to short-legged sheep, heavily
fleeced as the merinos are to the ex-
tremities of their limbs. The time
taken up sharpening his shears is a
serious consideration to the shearer.
Bad or careless shearers, in order
to give the sheep the appearance of
being properly shorn, may either
"shingle" or feather the 1eeces they
cut off. BY "shingling' is meant max
ing a second cut over the same part
of the body Of the sheep, the first sew
ering the staple toward the center,
and the second close to the skin; yet
the whole fleece holds together and
the damage may not be detected till
closely examined. On the contrary,
"feathering" Is plainly seen as soon
as the fleece Is shaken out; here the
clip has been uneven, leaving patches
of longer wool to be severed by Sec
ond cut. This leaves quantity of
short wool in the inside the fleece,
which readily separates when the
fleece is unrolled "Shingling" is the
worst fault. as it quite ruins the sta
pie for combing purposes.
In the mountain districts west of
the table-land the average number of
sheep fairly good man will shear in
a day Of eight and half hours varies
from seventy to 120. On the northern
plains near the Queensland border the
average is 120 to ITO; and 1t is on rec
ord that the champion shearer Of
Queensland clipped S27 sheep in nine
hours. Such a man, in the language
of ''the seed" Is termed 'sringer."
In the central plains on the Lachlan
River the average is eighty to 120.
With machines the numbers are, Of
course, considerably more. The men
are paid Fl per 100 sheep; and out of
this they have to provide rations,
shears sharDenfne- oil etc