WOOL SUBSTITUTES

Greymouth Evening Star, 19 November 1943, Page 6

WOOL SUBSTITUTES

WARNING TO AUSTRALIA SYDNEY, November 18. Unless scientific measures to improve wool production in Australia were taken immediately, the entire industry, worth £75,000,000 a year to the Commonwealth, would be in a precarious position, said Professor Clunies Ross, Dean of the Faculty of Veterinary Science at the Sydney University, and ex-chairman of the International Wool Secretariat in London. To meet the threat of’synthetic wool fibres, he said, Australian sheep could be made to produce 50 per cent, more wool than they did at present.

“Australia, though more dependent than any other countrv on her livestock, has lagged far behind them in the application of scientific principles,” he continued. “A Com-monwealth-wide programme of research should be undertaken immediately, and an Institute of Wool Research set up. Talk of the expense should be silenced oy a realisation that a fall of one penny per lb in the price of wool costs Australia five million pounds.” He added that production cost could be lessened by a more effective control of nutrition, and a scientific working knowledge of pasture management. Wool production could be increased by half if sheep were properly nourished. Breeding methods would also have to be changed. Progeny testing and other scientific research in breeding should start at once. Wool could be pi esented in a multitude of new attractive forms. As a matter of the greatest urgency, textile manufacture should be vastly expanded. Experimental work should be pushed forward in designing and dyeing processes, and greater exploitation of wools hygienic and healthful properties and. the expenditure of even a proportion of the money and eneigy being spent in perfect’ns synthetic fibres would put P the wool industry out of danger.