THE NEW SOUTH WALES WOOL HARVEST.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1774, 7 March 1906, Page 60

THE NEW SOUTH WALES WOOL HARVEST.

Upon the last fall of the hammer on the desk of the rostrum in the wool sale-room of the Royal Exchange on February 14, (days the Sydney “Morning Herald,”) the weekly scries of the 1905-6 season was brought to a close. That the season has held so l well throughout is most gratifying to everyone concerned; especially as the high values that have ruled for most descriptions of the staple have been the outcome of a healthy demand for wool by. the manufacturers of the world, and not been created by the operations of feverish speculators, who are at boom heights one year and depressed beyond recovery for many years to come. This season is remarkable for the splendid' wool harvest; shorn without a hitch, sold without friction, and realis-ed-without delay. A grand total of 597,125 bale's have been catalogued since July Ist, 1905, and 588,227 bales were sold by auction and private treaty. This volume of business represents at an average of £l4 per bale, no less a sum than £8,235,178. Never before has a more- healthy state of things existed in the wool trade in Sydney, or a larger sum been realised by growers, who have consigned their wool to the premier mart of the Commonwealth. Higher prices l per pound have been paid for wool, but such a remunerative level of values for so large a volume of wool has never before ruled in the Sydney mart. Such grand results could only be obtained by all the factors being most efficient—growers, sellers, and 1 buyers. The woolgrowers have bred their flocks to a high standard of wool-yielding proficiency, and in most cases properly prepared the wool for market; the selling brokers have erected the highest class stores, where the staple is displayed to the best advantage; and the buyers have came to the source of production and conducted their business in a way that reflects the highest credit upon themselves and the firms and countries that they respectively represent.