SHEEP SHEARING. 37 (that is the first shearing) weighing 6 lb. 12 oz., separated into eight qualities. 1. Super wool, I oz.; used for flannels, blankets, hats, tweeds, and coarse cloths. 2. Livery wool, I oz. ; for low cloths, as prison, army, navy, and workhouse cloths. 3. Grey wool, 21⁄2 oz.; used for the same purposes, and hat making. 4. Prime white wool, 5 oz.; used for cloth of all kinds, the best blankets, flannels, tweeds, shawls, Cobourgs, &c. 5. Choice wool, 2 oz.; used for flannels, cloths, blankets, tweeds, and shawls. 6. Pick tegg wool, 1 lb. 7 oz.; used for tweeds, shawls, and blankets. The skin wools, or those from the slaughter-houses, have other curious terms, as lusty, kindly, ordinary, broad head, pick-lock head. The wool of the lamb is generally softer than that of the sheep from the same flock, and as it has the felting quality in a high degree, is much used in the hat manufacture for the foundation or conical cap. The wool of lambs that have died a natural death possesses less of this felting property, and is employed for flannels and lambs'-wool hosiery. Young sheep's wool, and all long-grown staple wools, are bought by those who comb them for bombazines, camlets, etc. The short-stapled and weak-grown old sheep's wool can only be used by manufacturers of broadcloths and fancy goods. The great thing for promoting the growth of good sound wool is regular and generous feeding of the sheep, which insures a good supply of yolk, without which the wool would not possess elasticity, strength, softness, etc. SHEEP SHEARING.-In our pastoral colonies, and in countries where large flocks of sheep are kept, the task of shearing is an important one. For instance, in the single colony of New South Wales, it was stated that in 1875, 25,000,000 sheep had to be sheared, yielding approximatively 125,000,000 lbs. of wool, and 38 WOOL WASHING.. valuing this at Is. per lb., it would amount to six and a quarter millions of pounds sterling. The cost of shearing this vast lot of sheep at 20s. per hundred-about the average price-would be £250,000, and that of transmitting the wool to the seaport for exportation may be set down at about the same figure. Without going into more minute details, if we estimate the value of the wool clip of New South Wales for 1876 at six and a quarter millions sterling, and assign 25 per cent. of that amount as expenses incurred by the wool-grower from the time the sheep enters the wool shed to be shorn (this is the estimated cost in the working of a wool station) until the net proceeds are in the wool-grower's bank, there will be disbursed £1,562,500. That sum would go in shearing, carriage to seaport and to London, commission, brokerage, &c. Every year Australian wool is increasing in quantity and rising in quality, so that at the close of 1880, New South Wales ought to have at least 30,000,000 of sheep, which, with horned cattle and horses, would approximately represent in money value upwards of £50,000,000 sterling. Wool Washing.—Wool is sent to market in two forms, either in the grease or scoured; some manufacturers prefer to buy the former kind and wash or scour it themselves. The great object to be obtained in washing wool is not only to make it white, but to render it bright. After washing the sheep with soft soap and warm water, avoiding all alkalies, which destroy the fibre (make it harsh and dry, "work unkindly," as the manufacturers term it), the fleece when squeezed by the hand should puff out again, not feeling sticky, and should glisten in the sun with a peculiar brilliancy; if too little yolk, or natural grease, is left in the wool, it will be wanting in softness; if too much, it will become sticky, and after a time turn yellow. The desirableness of this brilliancy in the wool is, that French manufacturers of merinoes, de laines, and other light textile fabrics, will give extreme prices for it, for only this bright wool will take delicate dyes. Machinery is now applied for washing fleece and skin wool. 4.0 SHEEP WASHING. The ordinary process of washing wool is pretty familiar to most persons interested in that branch of industry, but the introduction of simple and effective mechanical appliances has thrown the former primitive method into the background. The centrifugal pump of Messrs. Easton and Anderson (p. 41) is now much used in the Australian colonies for spout washing. The apparatus is extremely simple, and consists of an iron tank mounted on a framing about eight feet from the ground, kept supplied with clean water by a centrifugal pump, driven by a portable engine. The tank is fitted with mouth-pieces, which are under control, and supply a torrent of water as required. Another tank of wood, or any convenient material, about three feet deep, built in the ground, partly filled with water, is the "soaking" tank. The water in this tank is kept at about 69 deg. of temperature, and this is regulated by a steam pipe from the portable engine. The plan of proceeding is as follows: The sheep are placed in the soaking tank and rubbed over. The warm water softens all the dirt in the wool. The sheep are then handled under one of the "torrents" from the upper tank, and the loose dirt is effectually washed away. So speedy is the process that three sheep may be washed in two minutes, and so effectually that the value of the wool in the London market is very much increased. The waste in the soak ing tank is about one gallon for each sheep. It should be observed that the cost of the apparatus is the only outlay, no expensive material being used in the washing. By a new chemical process, the sheep-skins in the tanyards are now stripped of their wool in an astonishingly rapid and effective manner, and the whole process, from the introduction of the raw skin into the place, to the dispatch of the well pressed bale, is interesting, from the clean, regular system in force. A most ingenious pulling machine has been invented for clearing the wool off the skins. It is composed of a large revolving drum, driven by a belt, the motive power being steam. The |
