SHEARING TIME ON A SHEEP STATION.

Press, Volume XLVIII, Issue 7777, 3 February 1891, Page 2

SHEARING TIME ON A SHEEP STATION.

By. an Akateub. WeeJdy Press. Last year about this time I had the pleasure of spending a month on one of Che largest rone in Mew Zealand, and venture to think that a few sketches may be acceptable to your readers. We had, after leaving the railway station, to drive some thirty miles over rolling downs, over which numberless sheep and gambolling lambs scampered at our approach. The downs were broken by rough creeks, with here and there clumps of manuka scrub, with its myriads of pretty white flowers, backed up by bunches of flax with great "koradies" just burs ing into bloom; while in some of the rougher gulleys hanging bunches of the beautiful native convolvulus could be seen drooping from the few scrubby bush trees. My companion besides the driver of the buggy was a shearer hailing from "Killarney, cor," who was returning from town where, he had knocked dowu a cheque for £39, " without so much, begorra, as getting a new hat out of it." He bad barely recovered from his " burst," and had stowed away an unopened bottle of the "cratur "in the bottom of the trap where the driver kept a fatherly eye on it, not permitting a taste for a long while, and explaining to mc that the last time he drove him up he had to tie him in with a bit of fencing wire, and was not anxious to go through the same performance again. While on the road we only past one individual in a dray, so absorbed in the scenery that he had fallen asleep, from which he was rudely awakened by bur driver asking him, " Where the—&c—he was coming to 1" He sleepily explained that he was going down town to fetch the missis, who had been ill in town, home; but after a few minutes , conversation wae sufficiently wide-awake to try and trade a horse he was leading on to our driver, who Although the horse's points were visible enough, did not admire them, and finally offered him five bob for him, so that he might be used for a hat and coat rack in the station hut, , ' With this on we drove, and a few miles further our friend the shearer showed us how expert he was in the manipulation of ft whiskey bottle by opening hie with a knife and after imbibing a large thimbleful, recorking it with a bit -of tussock wrapped in paper picked up on the roadside. At a wayside farmhouse, presided over by a splendid old lady, we refreshed our inner man with a substantial meal of mutton and bread and butter, washed down with sundry cups of tea. On again, and now our troubles began. Passing over the rough bed of a dry creek snap went the iron portion of the fore-carriage of the buggy, and ©ur driver again proved the old saying, "necessity is the i mother of invention," for jumping out with a " Well, there's worse accidents. than this on this ' blooming road," he pulled up a fencing standard from the boundary fence, which he broke by bending between two straining posts, and laid along the break, binding the whole with a piece of fencing wire, and the ever useful phormium tenate, so repaired the smash that ne took us into the home station without further mishap.

On our arrival we were sent down to " the hub," or, ac they prefer ifc to be called, the whare, where we had tea, and were shown bunks for the night. Bedding Is not supplied, for every man is supposed to carry his own. In, the morning I went over to the shearing shed and saw it being got under way. The first thing done wa.s to call all hands together to hear the " rules of the shed " read, a copy of which is afterwards posted up in a conspicuous place, and any man who starts work after this has been done, or after the shed has started work, isbouud to carry them bat to the letter. The shed had forty shearers on the board, and is divided, so that each two men take their sheep from one pea, but each one has a separate pen in which to pat his shorn sheep from which they are released by a clerk who takes the " tally." The men employed in the shed are under the. supervision, and control of a " Boss of the Board," whose business it is to walk up and .down the length of the shed to keep an eye on each and every man, to see that there is no " second cut of the wool; .that a man does not shear faster than he is capable of doing well, &c, &c I was facetiously told that the boas of the board carried a "revolver," fully loaded, and that if he observed any shearer taking a second cut, and thus not getting the full length of the staple of the wool, scamping his work, badly cutting sheep. &c, his revolver was sure to go off, and the consequence would be that the would-be scanwer would get fehe bullet, or to- use ' better known aiarig terms— I "the sack," or "theran." When a man finishes shearing a sheep, he kicks the I fleece aside on the floor, whence it is quickly taken by a "'fleecepicker," who runs with it to the rolling table, on which it in spread out, and all the dirty edges or ( " dags " rapidly pulled off by the "fleecerollere." and thrown under the table to be treated later on. The fleece-roller," after removing all the dags, &c, rolls up the fleece with the inside out, and passes it bo the " elasser," who in his turn, after carefully examining the texture, tells an attendant boy in which division it is to be ' stacked, from which, when sufficient for a bale, it is taken by the " balers," who, after closing down and branding the bale, pass it to the'*dumpers. ,, who, after comSressing into about half its size by an ydraufic press, put it in the loft ready for the wagon. The fastest average shearer in thelined is known as " the ringer," and the men and boys who have no settled work are " rouse-abouts." The " dags," or dirty edges of the fleece, are dealt .with by two men in a small shed just outside that devoted to shearing, and known to the ! initiated as the " dagologists' bureau." Here they sit and, with an old pair of shears, clip off all the cleaner portions of the wool which they sell to the proprietor of- the shed for a pound, and found. This is supposed to be one of the best paying, but a very dirty job, of the work about the shed, and although the rates nave gradually been reduced to the price quoted, the men have] no difficulty in making good cheques. ' While knocking about the yard I heard 'peculiar definitions for a lady s and gentleman's saddle. The proprietor and his wife had come over to the shed to have « j look round, leaving their horses in the j paddock with the reins hanging on the 1 stirrup. When they came out the pro-I pnetor'e horse was careering round, and a fieeeepieker was called and told to get on Hie lady's horse and catch the other. After considerable trouble the horse was caught, and brought back, and the boy was asked: " Welljlke, how do you like a lady's saddle! " He replied, amid much laughter, " Well, sir, to tell you the truth, I don't like them homey saddles; I like a poley one, it don't skin you so much 1" The men are well fed, and if there fa a good cook, have little or nothing to grumble at. Before turning to a 5 a.m. tea and "brownie," the latter called by

courtesy cake, and made of flower, drippingjfrtc., into which infinitesimal quantities of carraway seeds, spice and currants are placed,;Ji supplied; at seven breakfast!,, at whtefe |he amount of meat " pufcaway " by the men is alarming; turn to again at eight; and work till twelve, with two fifteen-minut© " smoke ohs," during which intervals a little light refreshment is taken is the shape of tea and cafce; dinner from twelve to one, when they turn to again till six, with the usual smoke ohs. At six the order is Riven to " clear the board," and every man has then to finish the job he may be doing, and shortly theory of "last fleece" Is heard, and there la a rush among the boys sweeping and cleaning the board ready for the next day's work. The first shearers who can get down make a rash for the grindstones two of which are kept busily going going till late In the evening and all day Sunday setting shears. After a substantial tea. at which meat Is again the principal dish.fehV men 101 l abontr the grass in groups telling yarns, stoma of which are ■trortn repeating. One told by a man'who had just returned from Australia, where he bad been through the drought, was good. He said *-*' Well, you see, talking about the drought in New South Wales, where I was there was no running water nearer than two hundred miles one way, and about fifty the other, so you can imagine what sort of shop it was when the frightful drought settled on us. No water but mud puddles in the bottom of the clay tanks, sheep, cattle and horses dying on every side. You, in New Zealand, don't know- what living means. The boss at last derided to send his family and the greater portion of his stock down to the wnter, and only kept two horses for going out to cut scrub for what were left, but after a while everything except these two horses was dead, and we and they had nothing to do. There was not a scrap of green food about, and all the paddocks sun-dried and cracking with the heat, so the horses were stabled and fad on chaff, brought up from the coast, four hundred and fifty miles away, at great expense. Well, things went on without change for eighteen months, and one day, all in a few minutes, the sky clouded and down came a frightful but welcome rain, flooding everything — water everywhere. The horses had not yet been out of the stable, and h«d been fed on chaff for eighteen months. About ten days after the downpour little tufts of grass,, welcome little strangers, began to spring up, and in the centre of that dry stable yard a little tuft grew alone. We thought the horses had better hare a run round pick up what there was, so I was told to get them out, and to do so I bad to pass that little tuft of grass. Well, sirs, would you believe it, those horses shied at that little tuft of gra?s. You see they weren't u*ed to it I There, I knew' you. would't believe mc, but it's gospel truth, s'help mc never," he exclaimed .as his hearers broke into a guffaw. : About the runs men carrying a swag are known as "commercial travellers," and carrying a swag is "flying a bluey," and it is an understood thing that every man who makes the homestead about sundown, a tbing very popular with the class, shall have tea, bunk, and breakfast before he leaves in the morning, aome owners going so far as to allow the cook to give the man enough meat and bread for a lunch to take away with him on the "wallaby."