SALE BY SAMPLE TESTS

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31984, 10 May 1969, Page 9

SALE BY SAMPLE TESTS

In a modest way the practicability of soiling brokers’ binned wool by sample will be tested in wool selling centres throughout the country in the closing stages of the present selling season.

Alongside 10 lots of binned wool being displayed in each of the four local brokers’ stores for next week’s final Christchurch sale of the season will be samples of wool in open mesh netting bins. This is purely a trial being carried out as a result of the co-operation of the Woolbrokers’ Association and the Woolbuyers’ Association and the lots alongside will be displayed in the normal manner with the usual number of bales open for inspection. For the samples, wool will have been drawn at regular intervals throughout the classing period for the sale, with the frequency of the sampling being governed by the size or number of bales in a lot A minimum of 2001 b of wool will be on display as a sample for any one lot. If it should prove feasible to introduce the system more

widely it is believed that it t would constitute a major de- , velopment in streamlining ( wool store procedures and in , holding Wohl handling costs, j Some day special containers < may have to be designed for < the purpose—in the trial, con- 1 ventional store bins will be ; used. Under the present system . all the bales in a .lot have to be stacked on the. show floor. Then, according to the number of bales in a lot, a ceft, tain number have to be 1 opened for buyers’ inspec- ] tion—three out of four . to. i six bales, four out of seven ( to nine bales, five out of 10 j to 10 and so on. Wool that is ( pulled out by buyers in the. course of their valuing has subsequently to be pushed' back and the bales sown up again and finally they have to be branded and sent to the dump store for preparation for shipping. tt is even envisaged that If sale by sample of brokers’ binned wool becomes acceptable and high density presses are used, it may be possible to press all but the sample wool into hitfi density pressed containers on the classing room floor, obvihting the need for dumping at the dump store and also the display of bales on the show floor. Brokers are also now using on a modest scale objective measurement of wool for fibre diameter, length of staple and yield in assisting them in introducing and maintaining a standardised system of classifying binned an-1 reelassed 1 wool. In each centre throughout I the country brokers are having a small proportion of their binned worn tested for these characteristics by the I Wool Research Organisation I at Lincoln as a guide in the I use of the traditional subjective classification or grading using eye and hand. Brokers believe that the introduction of objective measurement has much to contribute for the ultimate benefit of all sections of the wool industry. It has incidentally been found that the results of the I measurements have endorsed many of the traditional golden

rules of classing, especially in the effects on wool quality iff the breed, the age of sheep and the environment in which they live. The samples for testing are taken by a probe at random through the whole of the depth, width and length of a bin at regular intervals during the classing and placed in containers, and at the end of the period of preparation tot a sale the accumulated samples are sent th the Wool Research Organisation. With objective measurement to aid uniformity In preparation of bins and brokers* nspectors assisting in facilitating uniformity of standards between stores, the recent intraduction of a scheine fbr registration of classers and the preliminary investigation , of the practicability of selling by sample, it is felt that quite significant progress is; being made in refining- tbe preparation of wool for marketing. In the accompanying \ photograph Mr R. lies is seen Inspecting wool in a sample bln in the store of t the National Mortgage and , Agency Company, Ltd.