Posted in the FFSSA site here: www.finefleeceshetlandsheep.org/history.htm
is the Appendix on Shetland Sheep by John Tulloch that is part of the 1791 Report to Sir John Sinclair by Andrew Kerr. Cyndee Wolfe found the Report and ordered it for herself out of curiosity (because it dealt with sheep farming in Scotland). She then found the Appendix in the back of the report. She hit a gold mine! After she called me last week about the find, I immediately ordered my own copy of the book.
When my copy arrived on Monday evening, Cyndee and I then spent the next few days writing up the report for all to see. The book is a reproduction of the original, so some of it was hard to read for various reasons. Old English s's that look like f's were used, and many of the words were hard to make out because letters and/or words were missing entirely. When we had gotten as far as we could, she then telephoned Ohio State University (where she is an alumni) and asked if the library there had a copy. We were in luck! The librarian was very helpful, and with the library's better copy of the book, Cyndee was able to fill in almost all of our missing/blurred words.
After it was written down, we then spent a good deal of time actually thinking about what the report said about some of the characteristics Tulloch was talking about and what they meant. We had light bulbs blazing on for many of the passages and these are noted in the 'Footnotes with Clarifications' section. We felt that we needed to share this information to give new readers a chance to thoroughly understand the background and meanings of certain words or passages. I have studied Shetland sheep history for many years, accumulating quite a bit of information and publishing the 'Brief History of Shetland Sheep' document as the NASSA Education Chair in 2010. Cyndee has studied the history of the breed extensively as well. Between the two of us we were able to get a good understanding of the document. More information was found online (old books are being published via Google books all the time) that helped us to clarify what some of the words and phrases meant that we didn't already know. Such was the case with yesterday's word 'stickel', meaning kemp. The more all of us understand what was meant by the wording of the historical documents, the better we can piece together the true history of the breed.
So many of the old reports are out there that breeders need to truly understand what the writers were actually saying. This report by Tulloch fills in almost all of the blanks where other reports came up short, especially since his descriptions goes into so much detail regarding the wool. Tulloch was a native Shetlander, so this information that he put into words carries much more validity than a typical tourist's romantically flavored writings.
I've given below my thoughts on this discovery. But first go read the Appendix now for your own understanding before finishing this posting, then come back and see if you agree, have questions, or a different interpretation. It is fabulous find on Shetland history!
There are several take away points from this Appendix:
1. The description of the kindly breed states that the dense, very crimpy, silky, fine fleeced sheep existed prior to 1791. It is NOT a merino influenced breed as Merinos were not imported to Shetland till after this time. Tulloch's descriptions are exceptionally well defined.
2. The Shetlanders were debasing this breed by constantly using the 'worst', 'biggest', and 'coarsest' rams to breed from. Why? Because they wethered all the fine fleeced ones so they wouldn't wander off!! They valued the wool more than the breeding potential of the rams! This was quite unfortunate, but thankfully they still were able to get fine fleeced sheep because the strength of the genetics was there. They then relied mainly on the ewes to produce this fleece.
Unfortunately, we are left to wonder exactly what the following two statements mean when we think deeper on the subject: The effect of these importations might have been in some measure soft, had not ewes been introduced along with the rams, and the biggest and coarsest wooled lambs been preferred for rams to breed from. The lambs of the purest fine wooled breed have always a sort of reddish tinge at the bottom of their fleece.
Was Tulloch describing the use of crossbred rams when he says 'biggest' and 'coarsest' since he is talking about 'the effect of the importations'? Ewes were also imported to Shetland which dramatically had a big impact on crossbred traits. Then he goes on to state that the lambs of the 'purest fine wooled breed have always a sort of reddish tinge'. Does he mean that the 'pure' breed had pheo in its fleece whereas a crossbred sheep had none?? Should we be selecting more for white sheep with pheo?
Addendum: It was brought up that the 'reddish tinge' may be due to more lanolin in the fleece. The finest fleeced Shetlands do have more lanolin - this is true of all fine wooled breeds. And lanolin would be on the bottom of the fleece. Lanolin is a protective waxy coating of the fibers.
3. 'The purest breed, especially of the short wooled sort, seldom have any of this hair on the skin'. The hair that is being referred to here is kemp. Kemp is a major killer of wool usage in garment yarn manufacture for several reasons. It is a short, hollow, stiff fiber that is very coarse and prickly and does not take dye. Wool contaminated with kemp, depending on the degree of contamination, is only useful in rough outer garment wear if slightly contaminated (such as some tweeds today), and rugs if heavily contaminated. Kemp is a Scottish Blackface influenced trait, and possibly Cheviot and some other Nordic breeds. Some of it may have been in the breed to start, but with the use of the 'seldom', it seems likely that it was not typical of the pure breed to have kemp.
4. There is no mention of scadder.
5. The katmoget pattern is not named as such but the description is spot on with the 'silver grey' being described as various shades.
6. The fine crimpy wool was carded. Pictures from the Shetland Archive show many pictures of women carding Shetland wool 100 years after this Appendix was written. The video from the 1930's, 'In Sheep's Clothing', show Shetland sheep being rounded up ('caaing'), rooing the sheep, carding wool from a Shetland fleece, the typical long draw spinning from the carded rolags, and finally the knitting of a Fair Isle sweater.
There are probably several more 'ah ha's' we can gather from this paper, but that is enough for now!
Enjoy your ancient breed, the fine fleeced Shetland!
Addendum: It has been found by someone (but not substantiated by me) that the word 'cressed' in the document is the same/similar to the word 'creased'. Since that is so, below is my response:
Just did a little experiment. I have a pound of ready to spin flax in my spinning stash (never
messed with before). Pulled out a small piece of it (about a 'locks' worth) and 'cressed/creased
between the hands' (folded it like an accordion). It looks like M's - it holds those sharp angles
very nicely. It does not 'gently wave'.
Linen fabric is notorious for wrinkling (I have some 100% linen shirts and skirts) and you need a
very hot iron and a good amount of steam to get the wrinkles out. On the other hand, it also
holds a very sharp 'crease' such as in pants.
Since the line this word 'cressed' comes from is, 'like flax that has been cressed between the
hands, the hairs being all parallel to each other, though much bent, waving thus", this
substantiates that the sharp bending that flax takes when creased is similar to the sharp
curving/bending of the locks of wool this passage is talking about - only on a very much smaller
scale like the picture that the author drew in the text. One more piece to the puzzle solved!
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