SHEEP-SHEARING BY MACHINERY.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIII, Issue 206, 28 September 1878, Page 4

SHEEP-SHEARING BY MACHINERY.

A Boston inventor (Mr J. C. Wightman, son of the ex-Mayor Wightraao) seems to have discovered the long-3ought"for solution of the problem of shearing sbeep by machinery, and his device has been practically tested, wilh the most satisfactory results. Sheep shearing by hand is a work requiring especially skilled labor, but with tliis machine any farmer or herdsman becomes an expert shearer at once, aa the machine requires no previously acquired skill to ÜB9 it. It consists of a small implement which can be bandied as readily as a pair of aheep-shears, but which takes off the fleece so much more rapidly and economically than those articles as to cause a saving of half a cent to one cent a pound on the wool clip. It also does its work without cutting the sheep, and it possesses one feature that enables it to overcome the main obstacle that has heretofore Btood iu tbe way of the practical success of all previously devised machines for shearing sheep.

The uee of the sheep-shearing macbineß heretofore invented has been rendered impracticable by their inability to clip wool eonfaining sun i or dirt; ft few j grains of sand would turn their ed<ie I completely and reader them useless, j and the time and labour required to put them in condition again would moTe thau effset any possible gain which could ba derived from their use. This machine, however, is self-sharp-ening. The cutting is done by a rapidly revolving circular knife, working behind blunt teeth, which are pushed through the wool ahead of the knife, thus preventing any danger to the sheep. The knife is sharpened by an emery wheel forming part ofthe machine which the operator can apply whenever desirable, without pausing iu his shearing operations, by merely pressing a convenient spring attached to the machine. Tho minuter details of the machine, tbat perfect the resul's, it i*** hardly necessary to describe here. Tho motive power is applied to the mu chine by means of a flexible attachment to the handle. The method of introducing this invention to the public has not yet been determined upon, but the suggestion has been made that a company should be organised, and the machines leased to sheep farmers under a system of royalties similar to those of theJllcKay Sewing Machine Association. As the number of sheep in America and Australia is estimated at 145,000,000, and the annual wool clip at 580,000,000 pounds, a reduction of a single half a cent per pound in the cost ot securing it would cause au aggregate saving of 2,900,000 dollars per annum. The fact that Mr "Wightman's invention obviates any danger of cutting the sheep during shearing is a point in its favor whose importance will be appreciated by all who have ever had an opportunity of seeing the barbarous manner in which a sheep is sometimes mutilated by the shears. — American paper.