9 December 1862 Maraekakaho My dear Donald I am glade to say we are getting on very well with the shearing. We were stoped today washing the ewe flock but we commence again tommorrow. You ought to try and come up to see us at work. Things have gone on very well so far. Neil Walker is loaded with 29 bales 17 wether wool and 12 hogget. We have shore of the wethers & hoggets 3307 which have yeilded 40 bales of good wool and about 1 1/2 bale of locks and I think there is from 1600 to 1700 of them still to shear so at that rate you had better get 10 more bales ready to come up with Neil as I find the 80 bales will not be enough. I also send by the mail man a skean of the twine. It is quite rotten. Please to show it to Mr Irvine and try and get us 6 skeans of good twine. I had to get some twine from a neighbour. It was so poor it would not start hauling tight and might twist in the bales. Mr Begg may have good. He had very good last year. I have taken six parts of this & it will not stand. I hope you will come up on Saturday. I have told Neil Walker to get the twine & bales in case you would not be in Napier. Little Douglas has got a cold and the poor little fellow is quite hoarse but I hope he will soon get over it otherwise he is delighted with the shearing. I have kept an a/c of the fleeces in each bale as near as I could and I think the wether and hogget wool will average about 82 to 83 per bale. It is very clean and well packed. They certainly clip well this year and they always do in a dry season. We had a good clip three years ago when it was so dry. Yours always affectionately Archibald John McLean PS. The bales the same size as came up before. 3/4 bales if Irvine has not got them Kinross has plenty of them. Alex is in very good trim