A First Year In Canterbury Settlement By Samuel Butler


















































































































 -   Each
picks the worst sheep, i.e. that with the least wool upon it, that
happens to be at hand - Page 82
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Each Picks The Worst Sheep, I.E. That With The Least Wool Upon It, That Happens To Be At Hand

At the time, trying to put the best-woolled sheep, which are consequently the hardest to shear, upon someone else;

And so the heaviest-woolled and largest sheep get shorn the last.

A good man will shear 100 sheep in a day, some even more; but 100 is reckoned good work. I have known 195 sheep to be shorn by one man in a day; but I fancy these must have been from an old and bare mob, and that this number of well-woolled sheep would be quite beyond one man's power. Sheep are not shorn so neatly as at home. But supposing a man has a mob of 20,000, he must get the wool off their backs as best he can without carping at an occasional snip from a sheep's carcass. If the wool is taken close off, and only now and then a sheep snipped, there will be no cause to complain.

Then follows the draying of the wool to port, and the bullocks come in for their full share of work. It is a pleasant sight to see the first load of wool start down, but a far pleasanter to see the dray returning from its last trip.

Shearing well over will be a weight off your mind. This is your most especially busy and anxious time of year, and when the wool is safely down you will be glad indeed.

It may have been a matter of question with you, Shall I wash my sheep before shearing or not? If you wash them at all, you should do it thoroughly, and take considerable pains to have them clean; otherwise you had better shear in the grease, i.e. not wash. Wool in the grease weighs about one-third heavier, and consequently fetches a lower price in the market. When wool falls, moreover, the fall tells first upon greasy wool. Still many shear in the grease, and some consider it pays them better to do so. It is a mooted point, but the general opinion is in favour of washing.

As soon as you have put up one yard, you may set to work upon a hut for yourself and men. This you will make of split wooden slabs set upright in the ground, and nailed on to a wall-plate. You will first plant large posts at each of the corners, and one at either side every door, and four for the chimney. At the top of these you will set your wall- plates; to the wall-plates you will nail your slabs; on the inside of the slabs you will nail light rods of wood, and plaster them over with mud, having first, however, put up the roof and thatched it. Three or four men will have split the stuff and put up the hut in a fortnight. We will suppose it to be about 18 feet by 12.

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