OUR YORKSHIRE LETTER.

Manawatu Times, Volume LXV, Issue 327, 31 January 1908, Page 7

OUR YORKSHIRE LETTER.

POINTS IN BUYING WOOLSOME HINTS TO BEGINNERS.

(By the Manawatu Times' Special Correspondent.)

A pile of wool is like a womanits face sometimes misleads as to its true character. The buyer in the lofts is confronted by huge squares of the fleecy material, each a problem to be solved by his senses of sight and touch. Upon liis degree of accuracy in arriving at these solutions! depends his personal reputation and his employer's business success. No man, however expert, can comb, spin or weave well if the wool is deficient in some cardinal respect. The wool buyer stands at the river end of a long fire line; if he passes empty or leaking buckets to the next man, there will be no victory for the crew. . L - a A normally constituted man, if under thirty years of age, can mas*, ter the sorter's knowledge by confining himself rigidly to the board and applying himself with diligence. The bargaining instinct, however, must be inborn to some extent, but a slight natural tendency to acute dealing can be ''carefully nnrsed by observation and enlarged through experience until the ever-ready resource and fertility of argument essential to wide practice in taking up wools is required. The sorter cannot, by right of his trade knowledge, be sent out to buy. Business dealing and elementary calculations are all-important points to be combined with a familiarity with the fibre. And the vital ability to estimate approximately the percentage of extraneous matter in the fleeces —"judging the shrinkage"—is only to be gained through years of close application. It is the gift of time and experience alone. Examining twenty or thirty lots of wool in a warehouse and endeavouring to retain a distinct recollection of the characteristics of each without notes, is almost impossible. Of couse, if one is seeking a particular kind of stock of wool for a given purpose, he may at once eliminate all lots apparently unsuited to that purpose. The problem is greatly simplified thereby and the search narrows down to a definite end. But, as is very frequently the case, when one is "scouting" on the market with a variety of strings to his bow; when a resume of available stocks is • to be collected before selection is made, it is necessary to have definite details covering a number of wools. To be reliable, these can only be made on the spot. Handling fleeces over a board —from ten to fifty according to the probable availability of the lot in question—cutting open if suspiciously heavy, or grading roughly on the floor for quailfcy, is the customary mode. Fleeces from the outside of the pile must still be avoided; "facing" by the packers is encouraged on the quiet by some ex cellent houses, although the subterfuge would deceive only the most inexperienced. A system of recording these impressions with the least possible amount of writing is here offered. A pad or blank book three inches by two bill suffice. The object is to avoid the repetition of tedious spelling and the consequent waste of time by substituting numbers; the code of numerical equivalents had better be committed to memory. I was reading the other day in the Textile World Record, and came across the following items which are factors in determining the value of all wool

1' Tgrade, 2 length, 3 color, 4 strength, 5 gray hairs, G gray fleeces, 7 paint, 8 composition, i) tar, 10 seed, 11 speer grass, 12 shives, 13 Australian thistles, 14 soft burrs, 15 hard burrs, 16 spiral burrs, 17 chaffy barnyard litter, 18 sisal twine, IS) locks, 20 broken fleeces, 21 suiut or grease, 22 soil, 23 sand, 24 heavy dung locks, 25 discolored and burned, 26 low britches, 27 coarse hair through staple, 28 kemps, 29 hogget, 30 wether, 31 veinlocbs, 82 cotted, 33 diseased, 34 soft to the hand. This inay be modified to suit individual requirements. By writing 2 on the left side, we note that length is referred to. If '' 3 in. " follows the 2, we see at a glance that the length was three inches. Now if we jot down 3, we are considering colour, but with no degree of whiteness expressed as yet. To write

"good," "fair," "poor," would not simplify the matter at all. Again we resort to numbers, using a percentage plan to denote degrees of the quality'expressed. Thus 3/70 would signify a good average colour, with 3/100 as perfection of whiteness; 3/40 stamps disapproval upon the lot if wanted for white goods. A little practice renders the thing very easy. This is also applied to such characteristics as "soft burrs" in this manner: 14/30 equals a few scattered burrs; 14/80 equals thick with soft burrs. This system has the immense advantage that it is totally unintelligible to anyone who may come across sheet of your report. Of course it were foolish to suppose that all of these thirty-six points of wools would be found in each lot— no one growth of wool could possibly embrace them all —but a selection of the features most prominent must be made and noted, making the statements as concise and direct be in every case. The best general hint for the beginner is never to talk to woolmen of what he has previously done in a business way. The abova briefly surveys the leading points which beginners need to carefully observe as they"embark on this business. Growers can also pick up several valuable lessons which can be turned to good account in their daily avocation of wool produc- ■ tion. The more perfect is a fleece and the more the leading characteristics are in evidence, the more likelihood there is of a good price being forthcoming when the wool is sold. Even when prices are weak and there is a partial slump, the best wools are never effected in price as jtlie faulty and inferior parcels. Besides it takes no more to j produce good saleable fleeces than it does to grow weak, tender stapled wool, lean in character and deficient in quality. When a clip is of good length, sound, shafty and good quality for that respective class of wool, growers can always depend upon commanding keen competition and the best prices that are ruling.