WOOL-WASHING MACHINERY.

Press, Volume VII, Issue 686, 10 January 1865, Page 5

WOOL-WASHING MACHINERY.

[From the Australasian, Dec. 23.]

Amongst other undertakings and experiments of the enterprising proprietors of this station is one of much importance to the wool-growing interest in these colonies— namely, the testing, practically, and on a large scale, whether sheep cannot he most advantageously shorn in the grease, and the wool scoured on each station largely enough to allow of the outlay on machinery. Thus only, wherever the scouring is performed, can the wool be got up in the condition most suitable for the English market. The question of whether sheep can be most profitably shorn in the grease or after having been washed, is being answered by the gradual abandonment by the owners of the washing part of the business, and the sending to town each year of a greater proportion of greasy wool. This mode of proceeding saves trouble and loss of time to the sheep owner, and the wool can be sent home to the manufacturer in a better state for him than if it had been partially washed on the sheep's back; for only partially washed can it be without the use of soap and hot water. No arrangement of soaking pens or length of swim can compensate for the absence of these. Coarse wool can be thus effectually cleaned on the sheep; but not merino wool, the yolk of which, is too abundant, and too insoluble when long secreted and hard from exposure to be thus removed. The best system of spout-washing cleans it thoroughly, but not without much injury and knocking about of during the process. When the more soluble part of the yolk has been Washed away in cold water, the final removal of the residuum and of the stains from it is rendered more difficult; therefore the manufacturer prefers fine wool, either in the grease or after having been thoroughly scoured. Now, the question as to how the sheep owner here can best and most profitably meet the views of the manufacturer on all points in regard to the getting np pf his wool, is just that which Messrs. winter are solving for themselves, and we have their permission to give, for the information of other members of the interest to which they

belong, a few of the results already arrived at from the work of this season, so far as it has gone. The appearance of a regular factory chimney, and of no mean proportions either, on a sheep station, may, perhaps, be taken as a sign of tlie good time coming, and this is the first striking object on the approach to Colbinallbin. Under a large wool shedlike building is the wool-washing machinery, driven by a fine horizontal engine of thirty-five-horse power ; in fact, the same engine which did so much good work for the late railway contractors. Cornish and Bruce, at their foundry at Castlemaine. When set up there, no one supposed that such an engine would ever be removed to a sheep station; j but it has, and when the plans of its present owners are carried out, it will have plenty of work to do in its new position. As yet, however, it has only the wool-washing machinery to drive - and this is by Petrie and Taylor, anc similar to that which has been worked for some time past so satisfactorily by Mr. Oddy, at his establishment beside the Yarra. * The plan of these machines is simple, and they are, in England, deemed the best in use for this purpose. For the information of those who have not seen them. we may explain, in a few words, that there is a series of forks or rakes working with a circular motion in long iron troughs or tanks, three rakes in each, which agitate the wool and pass it along from one end of the trough to the other. The troughs are of course filled with water, and two or three can be used in connection, as other arrangements may require. The Messrs. Winter use two troughs, and the wool is passed twice through these; but they have a large soaking tank, at present unavailable for want of a false bottom, which they expect will save the necessity for passing the wool twice under the rakes, when it can be used. The tank is to be heated by steam, and in it the soap will be put ; but at present the first of the two troughs is filled with hot water, the ordinary mode when these alone are used. At the end of each trough is a pair of roller;?, the upper one heavily weighted, and between these the wool is passed, so that the water may be squeezed out of it, and all hard lumps thoroughly crushed. Another object effected by these rollers here is the flattening and breaking of the - burrs and grassseeds, so that these are much more easily separated from the wool than when it has not been so treated. The ingenious drums, with projecting and retreating spikes or combs, for raising the wool from the end of each trough when driven thither by the rakes, as well as the endless chains for conveying it from one to the other, and the quickly revolving fan for discharging it at the end, we need not minutely describe ; our object just now being more to direct attention to the results than to the mechanical means for attaining them. Suffice it to say, that the Messrs. Winter are determined to have these complete; and with this intention, they have just imported one of Petrie's patent drying machines, with an exhaust fan, which will be set up at once, and fairly tried before the work of this season is over. At this time of year there is little or no trouble in drying the wool on sheets in the sun; but at the commencement of the shearing season the weather is often showery and uncertain, with little sunshine for days together, so that the bins get choked up with wool, and the washing machine has to be '. stopped — a serious matter when so many men are required to attend on it alone, and a ; double staff of these, one for day and another for night, as steam is not allowed to go down from Monday morning to Saturday night; ! and, when it can be dried, the washing of the wool is carried on during that time without ntermission. Thus the wool-drying apparatus is a necessity, and a press, worked also by the engine, is about to be added, so that the clip of each day may be sorted, scoured, dried, and pressed within the twenty-four ' hours. About enough, wool to fill twenty bales is now scoured in that time, and when the arrangements are complete, the quantity passed through will be much greater; thus it will take a large shed full of shearers to ; supply the machinery with wool enough to keep it going. The woolshed on the station ' has accommodation for forty men, and the machine will be able to dispose of all that falls from their hands at least. Up to the i present time, the outlay on machinery and ; setting it up has been about £4000, so that no little amount of work must be done to get a return on this, and the wool from the other i stations belonging to the same owners will < supply work for some months after shearing : is over at Colbinallbin. Where there is work enough for the machinery to do, thequestion of profit or loss ; will, of course, depend on the condition in which the wool is turned out, and, therefore, the price it fetches, compared with what it is worth in the grease, as well as on the weight before and after scouring. And this very matter of loss in weight is the cause of no little difliculty between wool-scourers and those who employ them, so that the fixing of a reliable scale will be of itself not a trifling benefit. Something like a certainty on this point was, of course, a necessity with the Messrs. Winter as the basis of all their calculations, and they tried many different parcels of wool, with the utmost care in weighing, both before and after being scoured. The average loss of weight, as a mean of all these trials, was fifty per cent, from fleece wool, forty-eight per cent, from lambs' wool, sixty per cent, from pieces, and seventy per cent, from locks, and these, being the averages from sheep feeding over the great variety of country between the Campaspe and the Goulburn, may be taken as fair averages for the wool off any ordinary runs, when this is neither unusually dirty nor unusually clean. Nothing can be better than the condition of the wool, which is as clean as soap and wa.ter can make it; but no alkalies, or chemicals of nay sc«rl aye u&ed for bleaching it. Soda and potash aro cheaper than soap, but the one renders the wool harsh, and the other has a ] tendency to split the fibre when used iv any j

L but the smallest quantities. As the object . in this case was to render the wool as acceptable as possible to the manufacturers, their wishes were consulted, and they recommend the addition of nothing but soap to the water before the wool touches their hands, when it is chemically treated according to the kind of fabric it is intended for, and the color it is to be dyed. The susceptibility of wool for the highest colors is easily destroyed by injudicious treatment, and its value thereby much impaired, whatever the quality | may be in other respects. The best solvent of everything that ought to be removed in the preparation *of wool for market is the olive soap made principally, it is said, of olive oil, and some of that made by Daniel Salmond, of Bradford, for this purpose, has been imported at a cost of about sixpence a pound. This is the most expensive sort of soft soap, but is so much more effectual than any other tried, that it is in reality cheaper, and it leaves the wool not only clean and bright, but very soft and elastic to the touch, as if a portion of the oil of which the soap is made had been absorbed during the process. It is surprising to see the very dirtiest of locks and pieces put through this machine, as they come out equal in appearance to the fleece wool, in regard to colour at least. With the loss in weight ascertained so closely as to leave little room, for error on this point, it is not difficult to calculate the advantages of having the wool thus prepared for market, and to see that these must be great. In the first place, the sheep suffer comparatively little from being shorn in the grease. They are not chilled or drowned in the wash-pens, and put off their feed, and so reduced in condition, by being kept from their accustomed feeding ground and camping places for two or three weeks, while waiting to be shorn. When shorn without being washed, they are driven to the shed one day and away the next, without loss in number or in weight, an advantage estimated at a good round sum by the owners of large flocks. Then the difference in value between the scoured and the washed wool is lso great, while the difference in weight is so ' trifling, that a comparison in this way need scarcely be made. Proofs of the benefit of scouring are so numerous, that these need be scarcely insisted on at length, and the main question is, whether this can be done profitably by the owners on all large stations, or not. The cost of carriage to the shipping port is reduced by more than half, a no trifling item of saving on distant stations, and the reduced weight of wool is given a greater value, by far more than enough to cover all the working expenses and the interest of the money laid out on machinery. Wool is scoured, sorted and repacked by contract at a little over 2d per lb on the clean wool, and with apparently a very good profit to the operator, so this may be taken as the outside of the cost to the owner; and what fleece wool is there which, if worth, say, 14d a pound in the grease, will not fetch 30d a pound when scoured, leaving out of the calculation the saving on packs and in other ways, besides the actual profit the locks and pieces, which if sold in their dirty state, scarcely pay for "carriage from any distance. Until the machinery is complete, and the whole plan carried out, Messrs. Winter will not be able to calculate very closely the actual cost of scouring, but their partial trial of the English market with the first wool put through the machine last year, and the close observation of the loss of weight, and otherwise of the expense < attending the use of machinery during the whole of the present season, incomplete j though it yet is, have convinced them of the saving to be effected by the completion of this, large as the total outlay will be.