Ned and Harry were especially interested in the place where the shearing was done. The building was a large structure of quadrangular shape, with a bulkhead running across the middle of it and dividing it into two portions. There is a platform for the shearers around one of the enclosures formed, and by the bulkhead at shearing time; this is always kept full of sheep; in fact, it is crowded full, so that the shearer can lay hands on a sheep at any time without the necessity of running after it. The shearers stand at their work. They have tried various devices for sitting down or for placing sheep on a bench or table so as to avoid bending their backs, but none of the experiments have succeeded, and the old process remains in use. It is decidedly fatiguing for a beginner, but in course of time one gets used to it, as to everything else.
“What is that little door for, and the little yard outside of it?” queried Ned, as he pointed to one of a series of low, small doors at the outside of the shearers’ platform, opposite the enclosure.
“Oh, that is for the shearer to let out his sheep after he has removed the fleece. He takes the animal to be sheared out of the enclosure, as I told you, and then when he has sheared it, he lets it out through this door into the little yard; that is to enable us to count the men’s work in a way to avoid all disputes. In the early days of Australian sheep farming, the men who gathered up the fleece kept the accounts of the shearers, but there were constant disputes on the subject, which led to the adoption of the present system. You see there isn’t any chance for misunderstanding now.”
“Certainly, you have it now beyond question,” remarked Harry; “and I am sure that every shearer is very careful about letting his sheep out through his own door.”
“That he is,” was the reply; “and we never have any complaints about unfair counting. At the end of the day’s work everybody can count up for himself.”
“I suppose,” said Ned, “that the shearers occasionally cut the sheep while shearing them.”
“Occasionally!” was the reply; “you had better say frequently, or very often; and some of them are much worse than others. We have proposed to the Shearers’ Union to establish a system of fines for ‘tomahawking’ sheep, but the union refuses to do anything about it. We always have a boy here, and sometimes two boys, while the shearing is going on. The boy is provided with a tar bucket and brush. Whenever a shearer cuts the skin of a sheep he calls out ‘Tar!’ not stopping a moment in his work. At the sound of that word, the boy runs forward with his bucket and brush and covers the wounded spot with tar, which keeps the flies away from it. Tar is the best thing we can find for this purpose, and is in use on all the sheep runs in the country.
“Many of the shearers,” continued their host, “pride themselves on the skill with which they perform their work. The shearer places the sheep between his knees with its head upwards; he begins at the throat and shears downward, so that, when his work is completed, the fleece drops off in a single piece. As fast as the sheep are sheared, the fleeces are gathered by the man whose duty it is to collect them. They are then taken to the baling house, and, when a sufficient quantity has been obtained, the fleeces are made into bales, in much the same way that cotton is baled on an American plantation.”
Mr. Johnson then led the way to the baling house, or rather the baling room, as it was in the same building where the shearing is carried on. The baling apparatus proved to be a simple affair, nothing more than a press, very much like a cotton or hay press, and handled in the same way. The bales of wool usually weigh about four hundred pounds, and are manipulated with hooks, just as cotton bales are handled.
Ned asked if it was necessary to have the wool perfectly dry when packing it.