The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY- GAZETTE PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY, THURSDAY, Saturday Morning. Saturday, August 24, 1889.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume III, Issue 342, 24 August 1889, Page 2

The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY - GAZETTE PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY, THURSDAY, Saturday Morning.

Saturday, August 24, 1889.

Be just and fear not; Let all the ends thou aixn’st at be thy country’s. Thy God’s, and truth’s.

MORE TALK THAN USEFUL. For the last few years it has been interesting for those living in woolproducing districts to note the gradual progress made in the Substitution of machinery for manual labor. From Australia we have heard many glowing reports of the success of the machines, but while the advantages are made a great deal of we do not get the whole story on the other side. Some remarks made by a thoroughly reliable Victorian writer gives us a very fair indication of the relative positions of machinery and shearers by hand, at the present time. Sheep shearing by machinery, we are told, is gradually growing in favor among the large flock owners of Australia, but the day is still far distant when the familiar click of the hand shears will cease to be heard. In the northern colonies several large shearing sheds have this year been fitted throughout with the Wolseley sheep shearing machines; and though the results are spoken of in glowing terms, there is evidently not going to be any immediate revolution in the method of taking wool from the sheep's back. As regards proficiency in performing the work, the machines Seem to compare favorably with that done by ths shears. Sheep shorn by the machine are less liable to injury and a closer cut is also made, which, in addition to leaving the staple more even in length, gives a slightly heavier yield of wool. • But these advantages are totally insufficient to knock hand shearing entirely out of fashion. Further, it has been asserted that any novice could shear sheep by the machine system, and that flock pwners would shortly be able to dispense with the professional shearer. This is another mistake. A practical shearer soon learns how to operate with the machine, but the unskilled workman, from not knowing the way to hold his sheep, not only makes slow progress, but does very bad work. And with regard to the speed at which sheep can be shorn by machinery compared with the shears, the following tallies from a Queensland station show the saving in labor to be trifling:—At Northampton Downs, the property of Sir Francis ■ Murphy and Sons, on th# roth April last, 44 men sheared With til? machine j 4320 heavily fleeced s-tooth jli? '

higest tallies done that day were 142, 1 34, 134, 129, 128, 127,127, 127, 126, 121, 116, in, in, in, 108, 108, 105, 101. Previously the greatest number of sheep ever shorn in one day at Northampton was when last year 48 men sheared with shears 4100 ewes. The gain is so trifling in favor of the machines that it appears as if the day when the knights of the shears would be compelled to retire had yet to dawn.