PREPARING WOOL.

Southland Times, Issue 22055, 30 June 1933, Page 5

PREPARING WOOL.

To the Editor. Sir,—As there is a good deal being said and written lately on the classing and get-up of wool it occurred to me as a successful woolclasser of over 50 years standing, that a little gratituous information upon the general get-up of wool might be of use to many in preparing their own clips, for in these times money saved is money earned. In the very early days when nearly all sheep in Southland were Merinos and almost exclusively owned by our then Southland squatters, the order of classing was Ist, 2nd and 3rd combing, that is wool long and strong enough to stand the process of combing chiefly for yarn purposes. The Ist was the finest longest and strongest also brightest in colour and freest from any foreign matter. The same rule applied to the 2nd and 3rd combing to be left to the classer’s judgment, where hinges the success or otherwise of the successful get up of a whole clip, big or small. That disposes of Ist, 2nd and 3rd combing Merino. Now comes Ist, 2nd, and 3rd clothing, which is in reality tender or a staple with one or more breaks in the staple, whether it be long or short. Here again the decision on these must be left to the classer, and should such

classer be by nature endowed with what is recognized as wool instinct, he will probably be an outstanding classer. The word “clothing” mentioned refers to a wool too tender or .broken to stand the strain of combing for worsted or yarn purposes and it is usually manufactured or used for the manufacture of general clothing purposes. In the very early days all fleece were tied with string, a -practice long since given up as being detrimental to the wool generally. I now come to what is known as Bradford counts, a knowledge of which is necessary to determine the spinning value to the pound of wool; but my experience has brought me to the conclusion that opinions regarding this may differ considerably. But as thousands of fleeces resemble each other in counts there must, as a consequence, be no fixed standard. So this again must be left to the judgment of the classer and if he understands his job it will be reflected in the prices received for the wool. If the fibre of a bale of wool is fairly uniform, the varying colour matters very little, as it has to be scoured in any case before being manufactured into fabric of any kind. Unfortunately wool buyers as a whole are prone to take unfair advantage of much that really matters very little. The look of wool appears to go a long way both for and against and it is quite possible for a clean bright-look-ing fleece to lose more in the process of scouring through excess of grease or yolk than would a dirtier looking fleece, which is lighter in grease or yolk. I think it is generally understood there is ever a shortage the world over of sufficient white wool for pure white wool fabrics and to that end the writer of this article sent Home on account of Messrs Rowley and Hamilton, of Avondale station, a line of 30 bales of pure white fleece wool that realized 1/11J per lb, when greasy wool at that time (1890) was in the vicinity of the prices of to-day. Surely this is a venture worth while to-day throughout New Zealand with so much unemployment in our midst. There is much more I could say upon my methods of scouring, but I fear to trench too much upon your space and as an earnest of good faith I enclose a testimonial for your perusal. It would help the unemployed if this venture were tried because it would give work at our own doors for our own people instead of sending wool at greater cost of transport 12,000 miles to be scoured. There is much more I could say regarding the getting-up of clips in the most attractive way and also a less cumbersome way of scouring as done on stations and at small scouring places throughout Southland to-day. I have no motive to serve in writing this article other than to conserve and promote a local industry within ourselves as much as possible. I should be pleased to write more fully if you regard this kind of thing as of general interest.—l am, etc., T. GILLER. [The testimonial leaves no doubt about Mr Giller’s capacity as a classer and in scouring wool. We would be pleased to hear from him further.— Ed. S.T.]