Welsh Journals

ridges, while their dogs scour the intervening slopes and gradually collect the sheep. By this time it is daylight, and every little hollow must be searched by keen eyes and the occupants accounted for. Eventually the flanking parties close in, driving before them the accumulating flock which is kept together by the watchful dogs. And so, one flock at a time, the sheep are brought down to the farm yard where a small army of shearers awaits them. First of all every sheep has to pass through a pen where two experienced shepherds look them over, and quickly find by means of the ear marks any stray sheep belonging to another flock. The rest are passed on to another pen, where they are caught and handed over a bar to carriers who take them to the shearing benches. Here, at a big farm, there may be 60 to 70 men and boys dressed in overalls and having brought their own shears. The wool on the underpart of the sheep is first opened up, and the shearer then calls out Llinyn," i.e, string or cord to tie the four feet together. This Llinyn is a home-made production of soft twisted wool about 3ft. long, and is kept ready in bundles by a man standing among the shearers whose duty it is to keep them all supplied as soon as they are ready. The sheep is shorn by working upwards from each side until the whole fleece drops off. The fleeces and all odd bits of wool are care- fully collected in large sheets and carried to the wool-room where two men are kept constantly busy rolling them up and tying each bundle with a long twist of wool which they pull out at the finish. The com- pleted bundles are stacked in a loft which should be well ventilated, to allow for heating and to dry any which may be slightly damp. Back in the shearing sheds and with their feet still tied, the shorn sheep are carried out to a bed of fern for counting and marking, each one being laid down with the same side uppermost. There they are examined by an expert, whose duty it is to select the wethers for sale in the following autumn, the same man usually doing the same work year after year. He picks out the wether sheep at a glance, checks their ages by an inspection of their teeth, and if they are 3 to 4 years old and in good condition, he turns them over on to their reverse flank. The object of this is that when the marker comes round with his pot of hot pitch and his marking iron, the selected wethers are automatically pitch-marked on a different flank to the others, and can be easily distinguished at a distance on the hill.