WOOL. Ranking with cotton, as a clothing material, the wool industry of the world is, year by year assuming greater and greater proportions.
Large as is the area in the United States adapted to the keeping of sheep, the wool supply has al ways been unable to keep up with the yearly in creasing demand of the raanufacturers. Of late years, however, or since 1870, our imports of wool have not increased. For the first half of the decade, two-thirds of the manufactured product was home grown, the bulk of the imports being low grade carpet wool and unwashed merino, but constituting only about one-fourth of the value of the wool manufactured. Among the wool producing countries of the world, Australia has made the most marvelous growth in the pro duction of this staple. In 1840, England im ported thence only 10,000,000 pounds of wool. In 1874 England imported from that country 238,000,000 pounds of wool, and the flocks, in cluding New Zealand, consisted of 55,496,907 sheep. The following table, compiled frora late sources of information, carefully verified, places the sheep and the wool of the world as follows: The estimate of Great Britain is based upon four and three-quarter pounds of wool per fleece, with 52,000,000 pounds for wool of sheep butchered during the year. The number thus disposed of is usually reckoned at three-eighths of the stand ing numbers of the flocks. In the German Em pire the average is placed at three and two thirds pounds, with 6,000,000 fleeces of three pounds from slaughtered sheep. Hungarian fleeces are lighter, and in Austria-Hungary the extra fleeces are assumed to bring the average nearly to three pounds for each sheep. France produces heavier sheep and fleeces than the German States, more mutton sheep, with a larger proportion annually slaughtered, making 124,000,000 pounds for standing flocks of 26,000, 000 sheep a reasonable estimate. The South American fleeces are varia hle, but the average is much lower than in South Africa or Australia, and the sheep of Asia can not be safely estimated to yield more than two pounds each. There are some sheep in the islands of the Pacific, rendering the total estimate of 2,000,000,000 pounds very probable, and the number of sheep of the world 600,000,000 in round numbers is at least approximately correct. In the United States the sheep are kept almost entirely for their wool. The mutton product is really a minor consideration, except in the vicinity of large cities. In some portions of the country the pelts are even yet considered the more valuable portion of the dead animal. In
England, mutton is of fully as much importance as the wool; hence when an Englishman buys, he feels the animal and asks how much it will weigh. An American parts the wool and asks. how much wool it will shear. Thus in the United States the efforts are in the direction of wool; in England in the production of mutton. The shearing and handling of wool may be sum med up as follows: If the sheep have been washed, shearing should take place when the oily-feeling matter, termed yolk, has so far reap peared in the wool as to give it its natural bril liant appearance and silky feeling. The mode of shearing can not be described here in detail.. The wool should be cut off evenly and smoothly. reasonably close, but not leaving the skin naked and red, which renders the sheep very liable to. receive injury from cold. Stubble shearing and trimming, leaving the wool long, so as to give the next fleece the appearance of 'extraordinary length, or leaving it long in places, in order to affect the apparent shape of the animal, are both frauds. The fleece should be as little broken as possible in shearing. It should be gathered up carefully, placed on a smooth table, with the inside ends down, put into the exact shape in, which it came from the sheep, and pressed close together. If there are dung-balls, they should be removed. Fold in each side one-quarter,next the neck and breech one-quarter, and the fleece will then be in an oblong square form, some twenty inches wide, and twenty-five or thirty inches long. Then fold it once more lengthwise and it is ready to be rolled up and tied,or placed in the press. The improved wool-press, worked by a lever, or by a crank etc., does the work far more expeditiously, far better, and with much less labor than doing it up by hand. Three bands of moderate sized twine, flax or hemp once round are enough for the fleece. It is fraudulent to put the unwashed wool of sheep that have died of disease, or of those which have been killed, or unwashed tags, into washed fleeces. It is also fraudulent to sell burred wool so done up as to conceal the burs,without giving notice to the buyer. The burred wool should be put by itself, so that the buyer can open and examine it. Wool should be stored in a clean dry room, tight enough to keep out dust, vermin, and insects. If sacked and sent off to market, it is put up in bales nine feet long, formed of two breadths of burlaps thirty-five or forty inches wide.