The Continental varieties are tended with great care, housed in stables during the night, and protected at all times from the inclemency of the weather. The sheep are frequently washed, not only in cold water, but also with lint water and soap. The wool is very highly prized, and the sheep, instead of being killed off for mutton, are allowed to live for ten or twelve years for the sake of their annual fleece. As a matter of fact, in many of the foreign countries where sheep are bred, the flesh is not considered fit for food. In Spain none but the poorest would think of eating mutton. Among the other varieties of sheep are the broad-tailed sheep of Asia Minor, Tartary,and Northern Africa. The heavy tail of this sheep is amass of fat, often weighing as much as 20 or 30 lbs. This tail is considered a great delicacy for the table, and so much trouble is taken to preserve it from injury, that a small carriage is harnessed to the animal for the purpose of supporting it. This sheep is invaluable to the peopleof those regions. Its milk and its flesh supply them with food, and its wool, although very coarse, provides material for clothing.
Wool is, next to cotton, by far the most important material employed in the manufacture of textile fabrics. The woollen manufacture in the United Kingdom is estimated to give direct employment to more than a quarter of a million operatives; while the number of persons directly and indirectly engaged, in and for all the branches of the trade, from the time the wool leaves the farmer to the production of the manufactured article, is fully a million.
England"s annual home-supply of wool ranges from 160 to 200 million lbs. weight. In addition to this, they import every year from 500 to 600 million lbs. of foreign wool, at a cost of about ?25,000,000 sterling. Australian colonies supply the largest share of this, and every year marks animprovement in Australian wool, both as regards quality and quantity. It is estimated that the sheep-runs of New South Wales alone feed upwards of 30 million sheep.
It will readily be seen that the shearing of such immense numbers of sheep could never be accomplished by the ordinar y means adopted by farmers in their comparatively small farms. The washing, which usually precedes the cutting of the wool, is done with the aid of machinery, and so expeditiously that three sheep can be well washed in two minutes.
A large wooden tank about 3 feet deep is sunk in the ground. This is partly filled with warm water, and the temperature is kept up by a steam pipe from an engine close by. This is known as the soaking tank, and the sheep are placed in it and rubbed over, the warm water loosening the dirt in the wool. On the edge of the soakingtank stands an iron tank raised about 8 feet from the ground. This is kept filled with cold water by means of a pump worked by the engine, and in the side of the tank, near the bottom, are several horizontal slits, which canbe opened and closed at will. When they are opened the water pours from them in several torrents.
After the sheep have been soaked and rubbed sufficiently, they are held under these rushing streams of cold water from the upper tank, and this effectually washes away all the dirt from the wool.
Machinery is also used for removing in a marvellously rapid way the wool from the pelts in the tanyards, but the shearing of the live animals of course has to be done by hand.