The Shepherd’s Journal, Vol. 7, May 1915, page 11
Australian Sheep-Shearing
Demonstration in Wyoming
Bitter Creek Scene of First Trial in U.S. – Prominent Men Interested in Plan to Better Systemization of Industry in West
Expected Plan Will Benefit Wool Industry – Experiment Big Success – Enables Western Product to Compete in Markets of the World
The following description of the wool-shearing and wool packing demonstration recently held at Bitter Creek, WY which appeared in the Salt Lake Tribune and which is to our minds a classic, will be read with intense interest by our readers all over this and other countries.
“It is a little after dawn—cool and still and grayish-blue—when your train rolls up to the diminutive Wyoming station of Bitter Creek, and you swing down from the steps of the sleeper.
“The blat of a chilly old ewe echoes down the rails with the snort of the disappearing train, and you walk across the tracks to meet the big automobile that comes whirling along the sage-skirted road. You settle into a comfortable position, the car turns its nose to the south, and heads back along a road that twists its winding way through a broad, shall wash between Wyoming buttes.
“Another twenty minutes and you top a swell in the road and spread at your feet is a sight that brings the sheepmen in your car up alert and keen-eyed.
“On an acre or two of rising ground in the wash stands a spick and span yellow-painted T-shaped building, flanked at its further end by a score of sheep pens, while a half dozen tents, a big new bunkhouse, a kitchen and dining room and an office building lie grouped a short distance away.
Catches Sun’s Rays
“Big skylights in the roof of the T-shaped building catch the first rays of the sun as it swings up from beyond the eastern hills. You drive into the years to the accompaniment of the staccato explosions of a gasoline engine exhaust, and an instant later your ears catch the steady clicking of nearly two score shearing machines.
“And in the rhythmic, stentorian chatter of these twenty wool-clipping blades there’s a note that’s new—a note that’s final—the swan song of the oldest, the most ruinous and costly practice the wool industry of the west has ever known—the shearing of sheep in filthy pens and the indiscriminate packing of good, bad and indifferent wool in such a manner as to permanently injure practically every fleece in the pack, and pulling down the value of the good wool to the level of that which is poorest, even as it comes from the sheep.
“It is just a little difficult to believe that you are at the doorstep of the first Australian-system sheep shearing corral to be built in America!
First Time Here
“It is hard—a little bit—to realize that you are about to spend the day watching the operation of a system of shearing and preparing wool for market that has carried New Zealand and Australia into the fore ranks of the sheep countries of the world, and yet is this month in operation in the United States for absolutely the first time.
“Here, six miles south of Bitter Creek, Wyo. J.E. Cosgriff, president of the Continental National Bank of Salt Lake, and one of the best-informed and most practical wool raisers the West has ever known, and T.W. Boyer cashier of the Continental National Bank; J. St. A Boyer of Rock Springs and J.K. Hartt of Rawlins, Wyo., have erected the first sheep shearing corral in American designed, constructed and operated exactly as are the great, successful Australian shearing sheds, the wool from which commands the highest prices in the biggest wool markets of the world.
Educational Campaign
“No chapter in all the history of the sheep and wool business of the western states of this country has held greater interest, or a more marvelous promise for the future than the education campaign on the proper preparation of wool for market at its source. This has been carried on the past year by Mr. Cosgriff throughout the intermountain West, and which has now culminated in the erection of an Australian style sheep shearing corral wherein are correctly and vividly illustrated the benefits that accrue to sheep and wool men when their wool is properly sheared and properly prepared for the market at its source—the shearing pen!
“It is scarcely necessary to recall the fact that early in 1914 Mr. Cosgriff brought to this country at his own expense a world-famous wool expert, W.T. Ritch, who, during practically all of 1914, traveled throughout the intermountain region in Mr. Cosgriff’s employ, lecturing and illustrating to sheep and wool men the system of shearing and preparing wool for market that has made Australia and New Zealand the foremost wool-producing countries in the world.
Interested in Subject
“Among the many prominent men in the sheep business upon whom Mr. Cosgriff’s educational campaign has made a deep impression was Mr. Boyer, cashier of the Continental National Bank and his brother, J. St. A Boyer, who under the firm name of Boyer Bros. Inc., are large sheep owners in Wyoming.
“J.K. Hartt of Rawlins, Wyo., Mr. Cosgriff’s partner in the sheep business, was also impressed by the possibilities of the Australian system, and at the expiration of Mr. Cosgriff’s contract with Mr. Ritch several months ago the Boyer Bros. and Mr. Hartt offered to share with Mr. Cosgriff the expense of erecting a model Australian shearing shed. It was felt that this would form a fitting climax to the educational work Mr. Cosgriff had carried on personally through Mr. Ritch.
“Much credit is due Mr. Boyer of Salt Lake and his brother, Mr. Boyer of Rock Springs, and Mr. Hartt of Rawlins, Wyo., for joining with Mr. Cosgriff and erecting near Bitter Creek the first Australian system shearing establishment this country has ever known. These men control the Boyer Bros. Inc. sheep company, the Antelope Livestock company, the Pioneer Sheep company and Cow Creek Sheep company, whose 65,000 sheep are being sheared at the model shed.
“I had been led to expect a great deal from the Australian system of shearing wool and preparing it for market, but what I have seen here today so far exceeds my expectations that I find it hard to express the enthusiasm I feel,” declared Chris Juel, a sheep grower of fifteen years’ experience in Wyoming and president of the North Side State Bank of Rock Springs, Wyo., as he stood with hands clasped behind his back, watching every move of the clock-like operations going on around him in the shearing shed.
“Here,’ he continued, ‘in my judgement is the answer we have long sought to the problem of just prices—and better prices—for our wool; here is the answer we have long sought to the question of how to improve the breeding of our sheep; here I am actually seeing with my own eyes shearing and wool-packing conditions that I have thought deeply on for years, but had despaired of ever seeing materialize in this country.’
“And his words come as but the echo of hundreds of similar expressions, from United States government experts, agricultural wool specialists of half a dozen different states, bankers, stockmen, sheepmen, wool growers and wool buyers who during the past three weeks have threaded their way out among Wyoming’s buttes to the Cosgriff and Boyer demonstration Australian shearing shed near Bitter Creek.
“Men who have both written and spoken against the Australian system have come to this shed, watched the operations for a day or two days, and then confessed their former errors in judgment and left to spread the news of the success of this first Australian system shearing shed in America.
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