. . . sheep himself; “no careful man ought to do so.” This summer he had not done any part of the shearing personally, but “just lookit on,” and decided which animals were to be clipped. In the year of demobilization, when many Colonial soldiers were present in London, the operation not only took place earlier than usual, but more expeditiously, for two Australians came to Finchley with their machines and did it fine.
In the South of England, I do not think that an expert shepherd would shear a hundred sheep a day, perhaps not half that number. On asking my friend whether he could suggest a reason for the vast difference in the totals, he said that in Scotland they do not shear the animals so closely.
“Why, I would prosecute some of these people here for cruelty to animals. When you clip sheep so near the skin, they get sunburnt, and suffer agonies in hot weather. If I were a flockmaster, I wouldn’t allow it. After being clipped like that, the sheep loses more in a week than it will put on in a fortnight. The mutton is partly cooked while the beast is alive. Hooch, aye, and the wool near the skin is nae guid; when they comb it, the caddis (short woolly lint) falls out. In Scotland we leave a rem (rim) as we clip. The lower blade of the shears cuts deeper than the upper blade and the wool is left in little ridges and hollows next the skin, and these shade the sheep from the heat.”
Of a truth, there is nothing new under the sun, for it is about eighteen hundred years since Suetonius wrote “Boni pastoris est tondere pecus, non deglubere”—the . . .