LOSSTHROUGH BADSHEAKING

Clutha Leader, Volume I, Issue 28, 21 January 1875, Page 3

LOSSTHROUGH BADSHEAKING

A writer in a Victorian paper, says : — " Fevv persons realise the losses sustained through bad or careless shearing;. I have been nssured by a large sheepowner that with a too easy superintendent he had lost, the year before last, sixpence on every sheep shorn, or LI 2OO on the whole of his flock. This is perhaps an extreme case, but in another instance, in my presence, a squatter in the -south took one of the shorn sheep from the pen when being counted out,, and bv re-shearing obtained nine ounces of wool from it. In reply to my query, this gentleman asserts that the wool so left on the backs of the sheep is lost, for it comes off in streaks afterwards. Not a season passes but we notice especially or exceptionally high prices for certain bales. The auctioneers tersely explain that these are " well got up," that is, besides quality, they have something else to recommend them. Judges, who have been shearing on the continent and in England, invariably state that not one-half the sheep in this colony are properly shorn, and that, we lose sixpence per fleece thereby./ -A gentleman well posted on the subject says: — " The flock master wants a large capital in the purchave and improvement of sheep, spares no expensp, no toil, no care in putting on his flocks the best fleece that they are capable of bearing, washes them with soap and hot water, by means of an expensive apparatus, and brings them into the shed in is perfect a condition as possible ; and when there a careless, nasty, unskilful shearer so mangles both sheep and wool, that a considerable portion of the squatters labour and expense is thrown away." If flockmasters would only consider that while they pay Ms 6d to 4s per score for shearing,- and lose 3d to 6d per fleece, or from 5k to 10s per score, through " tomahawking " and " camping," some active steps towards reform would perhaps take place. From what I have written it will be Seen that the losses are from two causes. First, through leaving too' much wodl on- and i causing broken fleeces, wiih " under I and "over" 'cuts'; and secondly, through brutal carelessness by injuring- the'sheep I. in cutting oflf skin and wool. Last ye'arj when there' vrerti 18,000^000 sheep in the colony, we estimated, at a low calculation, that the loss through these combined causes were; not less, than a quarter of a million sterling." ; Forty pounds of tallow were lately taken from one sheep in Grayson County, 'Texas.- :'■ ; " ':• - : l - ••-• 8 ■-• •>•■•- ''' I Wool. — A' recent : Tasmariiati'papeiy on the authority of a gentleman who recently paid a- visit 7 ' to ; Europe, states that one of the largest manufacturers and wool buyers. in the South of Scot-" land informed him 'thafinuch of the Australian 1 wool- w'as -feeing ruined by hot water washing, that c> it was 1 being overdone entirely, and that their house, afte'r nriich experience,, wotild. : not ' 4)tfy a halef bf it: ' bv ; et-ffumping,' a"gc^pa ri d^al 'of wbWhas proved v io be- utterly wdrthless^Wfieir .■ subjected, to.the^clion of the machinery 1 . ; ajK^Jmlfet-.liMeJibove applies to New ZeatetfEl,f,anil#iW«vld b&well' if jgodLy Wwers would give this matter, whfefij &talfefitij^eir|^^pegtf^thatf 6Qnsi#Bra 5 !yiKha»lw?i'" boB .ks:jMo&ftistii{, eld '■ bi\ii- fn- J . ■•;.-..'! i.