FIRST WOOL SALE TODAY

Southland Times, Issue 23733, 3 February 1939, Page 6

FIRST WOOL SALE TODAY

SMALLER OFFERING THAN LAST YEAR GROWERS EXPECT LOWER PRICES Southland farmers will anxiously await the results of today’s wool sale at the Civic Theatre. A total catalogue of 24,000 bales, representing the greater part of the clip of the province for the season, will be offered and auctioned within a few hours. No product of the farm is more quickly disposed of and in a short time an offering expected to realize about £250,000 will change hands.

The allocation for today’s sale is 4000 bales below that for the first sale last year and not a few farmers who have usually sold their wool at the opening sale of the season have been unable to secure space in this year’s catalogue and will be forced to sell at the second sale on March 11. Recent sales in New Zealand have caused the expectation of a drop of from |d to “jd per lb for the average quality of Southland crossbred wool compared with the first sale last year. This drop, together with the reduction in the size of the catalogue, promises a fairly substantial shrinking in the farmers’ cheque from the sale. Last year the offering was 28,000 bales, of which about 26,000 bales were sold, realizing £339,000. but it is unlikely that the wool to be offered at today’s sale will produce much more than £250,000. The sale will begin at two o’clock. Last year’s bigger offering was sold in four and a-half hours and it is expected that the final lots today will have been dealt with by six o’clock.