Hand shearers could process sixty to eighty sheep a day at 7.5 cents each.

Evidence

The shearing season, which begins in early June, lasts about six weeks. Shearers get six and a half cents a head for inferior sheep, and seven and a half cents for the better quality, and a good hand shears from sixty to eighty in a day. — Isabella L. Bird, A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains, 168

Categorization

• CANDY: Sixty to eighty sheep a day by hand, paid pennies a head—the kind of number that lands in any conversation about pre-industrial labor.