The Bourne Archive is a thirty-eight page booklet presented with the compliments of T.W. Mays and Son, of Bourne. It is un-dated but internal evidence indicates that it comes from shortly after 1905, and before 1909.
Hide preparation: Woolstapling and Fellmongering:
Fleeces: "There are four distinct qualities of wool on every sheep, the finest being upon the spine, from the neck to within six inches of the tail, including one-third of the breadth of he back. The second covers the flanks between the thighs and the shoulders. The third clothes the neck and the rumps, and the fourth extends from the lower part of the neck and breast down to the feet, and also upon a part of the shoulders and thighs to the bottom of the hind quarters. These are torn asunder and sorted on the fleece being delivered after the shearing ... No less than twelve or fourteen distinct varieties of wool can be obtained by the experienced stapler, and as it is sorted it is baled ready for dispatch to Bradford and other wool centres.
Independent of the quality of fineness, there are two sorts of wool which afford the basis of different fabrics, and are somewhat differently treated in the process of spinning. The long and the short Lincolnshire sheep are noted, of course, for their long, heavy wool. The Lincoln hog has a long staple with a curly fibre; the Lincoln wether has a short staple with no curl. The half-breed has a fine wool, the staple of the hog and wether being also long and short respectively.
It may not be uninteresting to explain that after the removal of the first fleece the tup-hogget becomes a shearling, the ewe-hogger a grimmer (generally called in Lincolnshire gimmers), and the wether hogget a dinmont (hence the name “Dandy Dinmont.” After the removal of the second fleece, the shearing becomes a two-year wether, the grimmer a ewe, and the dinmont a wether. After the removal of the third fleece the ewe is called a twinter-ewe, and when it ceases to breed, a draft ewe. To “cast a sheep’s eye” at one is to look askance, like a sheep, at a person to whom you feel lovingly inclined, and no doubt the sheep regards the shearer lovingly when he removes his heavy winter coat. This begins to be rugged in Spring, or early in Summer, and in June is ready for shearing.
But besides the fleeces, Messrs Mays are large purchasers of “farmers’ locks,” the name given to the wool cut from the sheeps’ tails prior to shearing. These locks, when carefully treated, yield a second grade wool of excellent quality; and during the Japanese War Messrs. Mays did an enormous business in this wool, which was turned into khaki and blankets for the Japanese troops. Their great sorting shed in June presents a scene of great animation, one side being occupied by women picking these “clag locks.” They do not entirely separate the dirt from the wool, but what they have picked is put into “willyingmachines,” the drums of which are studded with iron spikes, and which, driven by a gas engine 14, perform from five hundred to a thousand revolutions a minute, and take the excreta from the wool. This contains much nitrogen, and is a valuable consistent of the Artificial Manure made by Messrs. Mays, who waste nothing that comes to them. Formerly, the “clag blocks” were washed on the farm, and the dirt made soluble and the liquid thrown into the dykes or rivers; but Messrs. Mays deal with it, as will be seen, in a scientific manner, and it is, of course, and invaluable ingredient of their Manures."
