Sheep on their way to the shearing shed.

That sudden and substantial advance in wool values of last year, coming as it did in the depths of an unprecedented depression, served as an arresting reminder of what this industry means to our country's progress and prosperity. Throughout long years of steady advancement, dating back almost to the beginning of things, wool production and its related industries have been largely taken for granted. The clothes we wear, from the heaviest of tweeds to the cosiest of nether garments, the warm blankets and the comfortable rugs, finished products of the wool industry, we have accepted as a rightful inheritance, with little thought and less conception of the genesis of such things. Yet nothing more colourful or absorbing could be written of industry and enterprise, with the exception, perhaps, of gold production and whaling, than that surrounding the history of wool in New Zealand. It is a story of the back-blocks, which, for the purpose of this article, centres in the shearing shed. Advances of time and science have brought their changes, chiefly in improved quality of sheep and wool; means of transit and access to markets have been revolutionised, and machinery has displaced hand labour in many directions; but in all essentials shearing time remains shearing time. Australian writers have found a never failing source of inspiration in the shearing sheds of that country, and heroes of the blade and long-blow have been enshrined in their literature. “McClusky” and “Scotty Mack” were the heroes of fiction, “Jacky Howe” the hero of real life. The reader will doubtless be familiar with those exhibitions at spring shows, where a man in denims, on an elevated platform, leisurely and methodically strips a submissive sheep of its clothing, to demonstrate the advantages of some particular brand of shearing machine. If you have formed a mental picture of the shearing shed from that spectacle, so far removed from its natural setting, it may well be forgotten.

Silverbourne Downs Station.

Take leave of your city life for a brief period. Board the mail train on a bright morning early in November, and rail and motor will land you at Silverbourne Downs boundary, one hundred and thirty miles away, in the evening. Over four miles of hills and perilous looking cliffs and across a final two miles of undulating country by a station wagon, and your journey ends at the homestead road, a broad straight stretch of half a mile. On the right, running away towards the hills, is a shelter-belt of tall pines; on the left, some distance away, stands the woolshed, a low wide-spreading structure in a setting of sheepyards and pens. A substantial bridge spans a clear running stream, and immediately across this, on both sides of the homestead road, are situated the station buildings, and at various points and adequately distanced, are shepherds' and station-hands' cottages. At the end of the road a large garage bars the way, and veering to the right a short drive ends at the station homestead, a spacious and attractive looking bungalow. On an elevation some distance to the left is a neat little school, a tiny model of its more imposing brother of the city, standing silently eloquent of their common purpose. A few station-hands are still moving around in completion of their day's task. A pleasant and satisfying picture the whole scene makes, yet a sense of remoteness about it all, a remoteness not spanned by the miles we have travelled, but of a new environment, and somehow accentuated by the gathering darkness. Shearing commences on the 16th, and preparations are already under way. Loads of stores have arrived, and benzine, oil, tar, and woolpacks are stacked in handy places ready for use. There are groceries in abundance for the cook-house, for there are forty extra men to be fed for three weeks, perhaps much longer; machinery parts to replace worn out ones, and sheep pens and yards to be repaired and strengthened. Station activities quicken appreciably in the intervening week before the commencement. Extra shepherds and musterers, with their dogs, arrive, and later, with pack horses laden with supplies, make for the outposts. The shearers' but, empty for the year, is thrown open, cleaned and aired, and newly equipped.

Old “Sandy” Grant, the wool-classer, and the “expert” are the first of the shed staff to arrive. The expert proceeds to get the machinery into working order. The engine is tuned up, belts adjusted, and shafts and handpieces oiled and set. “Sandy,” veteran of twenty consecutive seasons at Silver-bourne, with the assistance of a couple of rouseabouts, is clearing up oddments accumulated during the off season, and setting up tables and bins ready for the wool. The next to arrive are the cook and his “off-sider,” a pair as strangely assorted as ever ran in double harness. The shearing is to commence on the Wednesday. The influx of shearers, shed hands, pressers, and rouseabouts, commences on the Monday and is complete by Tuesday evening. And what a widely diverse company are the followers of the sheds! Old campaigners, veterans of the old blade days, long passed their hey-day, who bloom again each season like the flowers of spring; strapping men whose only romance is that written in the shearing cheque;