SHEEP-SHEARING BY MACHINERY.

Press, Volume XXX, Issue 4095, 11 September 1878, Page 5 (Supplement)

SHEEP-SHEARING BY MACHINERY.

A Boston inventor (Mr J. 0. Wightman son of ex-Mayor Wightman), seems to have discovered the long-eought-for solution of the problem of shearing sheep by machinery, and his dcvi.-c has been practically tested, with the most satisfactory results. Sheep shearing by hand is a work requiring especially skilled labour, but with this machine any farmer or herdsman becomes an expert shearer at once, as the machine requires no previously acquired skill to use it. It consists of a small implement which can be handled, aa readily as a pair of sheep-shears, but which takes off the fleece eg much more rapidly and economically than those articles as to cause a saving of half a cent to one cent a pound on the wool clip. It also does its work without cutting the sheep, and it poeseaees one feature that enables it to overcome the main obstacle that has heretofore stood in the way of the practical success of all previously-devised machines iot shearing sheep. The use of the sheep -shearing machines heretofore invented has been rendered impracticable by their inability to clip wool containing sand or dirt; a few grains of sand would turn their edge completely and render them useless, and the time and labour required to put them in condition again would more than offset any possible gain which could be derived from their use.

Thie machine, however, is self-sharpening. The cutting is done by a rapidly-revolving circular knife, working behind blunt teeth, which are pushed through the wool ahead of the knife, thus preventing any danger to the sheep. The knife is sharpened by an emery wheel'forming'part* of the machine which, the operator can apply whenever desirable, without pausing in his shearing operations, by merely pressing a convenient spring attached' to the machine. The minuter details of the machine, that perfect the results, it is hardly necessary to describe hejre Tho motive power is applied to the machine by means of a flexible attachment to tho handle.

The method of introducing thin invention to the public has not yet been determined upon, but the suggestion has been made that a company should be organised, and the machines leased to sheep farmers under a system of royalties similar to those of the McKay Sewing Machine Association. Aβ the number of sheep in America and Australia ie estimated at 145,000,000, and the annual wool clip at 580,000,000 pounds, a reduction of a single half a cent per pound in the cost of securing it would cause an aggregate saving of 2,900,000 dollars per annum. The fact that Mr invention obviates any danger of cutting the sheep during shearing is a point in its favour whose importance will be appreciated by all who have ever had an opportunity of seeing the barbarous manner in which a sheep is sometimes mutilated by the shears.—American paper. i