OUR YORKSHIRE LETTER.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 335, 23 October 1908, Page 8

OUR YORKSHIRE LETTER.

WOOL AND WATER. (PROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.) Bradford, September 11. The wet-sheep question is a . matter which every woolgrower throughout the colonios and South America is very familiar with, and in consuming areas the same difficulties arise, only in a somewhat different form. If I may so term it, the woolgrower is troubled with wator in its first form, while the topinaker and spinner is concerned about it in the excessive "condition" of tops, noils, and yarns. It all amounts to the same thing in the end. If moisture can bo deposited upon wool, and the samo can bo safely carried in the cells of the wool fibre without any injury to the same as far as the saleroom, then the grower materially benefits, for water weighs sensibly heavier than the wool fibre itself. I don't suppose that much would be heard of the wetsheep question if water could be carried in wool without .the latter, heating, and so sensibly injuring the fibre. Wo all know that for water to get inside a bale, or for wool ito be baled in a damp condition is very liable to cause spontaneous combustion, it being 110 uncommon thing to see fire break out in a cargo of wool when coining from Australian ports. Only two years ago no fewer than five vessels from New Zealand were found to be on lire, all due to spontaneous combustion in their cargoes of wool. But it is not the wetsheep question that I .want to speak about, but the precautions taken at this end to see that justice is done between the various branches of the trade. Twenty-five years ago such a thing as a conditioning house was not known; in fact, it is only within the last dozen years that such an important institution was founded in Bradford. That its existence was solely needed has been justified by actual results, and to-day the wool trade at the consuming end has been so specialised that such an important institution is an absolute necessity. In "the good oil days" it was no uncommon thing for merchants or dealers in tops, noils, and yarns to take a watering-can and give the various products a pood drenching before the doors were closed the last thing on a night; or, all the floor and-gangways would be watered. Very many years ago it was found out that wool was of a very hygroscopic nature, that is, it readily absorbs moisture. Even to-day it is a very common thing for bales shipped at all ports in Australasia, South Africa, and South America to weigh on arrival Homo six to ten pounds heavier than they did at the time of shipment.