WOOL, the fleecy covering or pile of the sheep, and some other animals, as the alpaca, the vicuna, and some species of goats. Wool is generally divided into three classes, long, short, and coarse or carpet wool; and these are divided into subordinate classes according to fineness. It differs from all other varieties of hair by the corrugated nature of its fibers, due to the epithelial scales which over lap the course of its fibers, under cer tain conditions, from their corrugation, interlock with each other and form a felted fabric. Wool is divided into pulled or clipped fleece wool. Pulled wool is pulled by the roots from the skin of the dead animal, the clipped is shorn from the living one. Short-staple wool is used in cloth manufacture, and is fre quently called clothing wool. To this class belong the Saxon and Silesian wool of Germany. a portion of the wool of Australia, of the Cape of Good Hope, Buenos Aires, Russia, Canada, and the bulk of the wool produced in the United States, all being of immediate or remote Merino blood. The quantities and values of these are about in the order in which they are inserted above, the Saxony wool being best adapted to the very finest qualities of broadcloths. Short-staple wool may vary in length from 1 to 3 or 4 inches; if it be longer it requires to be cut or broken to prepare it for manu facture. The felting property of wool is well known. The process for hat mak ing, for example, depends entirely on it. The wool of which hats are made is neither spun nor woven, but locks of it being thoroughly intermixed and com pressed in warm water cohere and form a solid tenacious substance. Cloth and woolen goods are made from wool pos sessing this property; the wool is carded, spun, woven, and then, being put in the fulling mill, the process of felting takes place. The strokes of the mill make the fibers cohere; the piece subjected to the operation contracts in length and breadth, and its texture becomes more compact and uniform. This process is essential to the beauty and strength of woolen cloth. But the long wool of which stuffs and worsted are made is de prived of this felting process. This is done by passing the wool through heated iron combs, which takes away the lam ina feathery part of the wool, and ap proximates it to the nature of silk or cotton. Long-staple wool is also called combing wool and delaine wool. To this class belong the long lustrous, down combing English wool of Leicester, Lin colnshire, and Cotswold; the soft-comb ing wool of Rambouillet of France; the soft long-staple wool of Australia; the cheviot of Scotland, and the combing wool of Canada, Ohio, Kentucky, Penn sylvania, New York, Maine, and other parts of the United States, all derived from the Leicester or other English blood. The French and Australian are most esteemed for women's dress goods, such as merinos, cashmeres, thibets, and the like; the cheviot for Scotch tweeds, and the English usually for worsted goods. The American wools of this class are of medium quality. Long wool may vary in length from 3 to 8 inches. The shorter combing wools are principally used for hose, and are spun softer than long-combing wools; the former being made into what is called hard and the latter into soft worsted yarn. To the
third class, the coarse-staple wools which are adapted for carpets, belong the Don ski, and other coarse Russian wool, the native South American, Cordova, Val paraiso, native Smyrna, and other wool.
The art of forming wool into cloth and stuffs was known in all civilized countries, and in very remote ages. Woolen cloths were made an article of commerce in the time of Julius Cmsar and are familiarly alluded to by him. They were made in England before A. D.
1200, and the manufacture became ex tensive in the reign of Edward III. (1331). The policy of England toward the American colonies was directly in tended to discourage and repress manu factures of all kinds, those of woolen goods included. The actual result was that the domestic manufactures of coars er or "home-made" cloths became very widely spread and considerable, and the importations of foreign cloths were pro portionately small. A society organized in the limits of the present State of New York, in 1765, deprecated the use of foreign cloths and adopted various measures for increasing the home manu facture, even to rules requiring that the flesh of sheep and lambs should not be eaten nor the animals slaughtered. The supply of wool appears to have been large, and it was mostly worked up and disposed of within the colonies. Many thousands of weavers and cloth workers are said to have come over about the year 1774. The report of Alexander Hamilton on manufactures, in 1791, speaks of a mill for cloths and cassi meres in operation at Hartford, Con necticut, but conveys a doubt whether American wool was suitable for fine cloths. In 1794 there was a woolen fac tory in Newbury, Mass., and in the same year a carding machine for wool was put in operation in Pittsfield, Mass. Pres ident Madison's inaugural suit of black broadcloth was made at Pittsfield in 1804. The United States has produced the best invention for making felted goods, carpetings, and the like of any other country. The census of 1810 gives for New York the number of looms (largely in private hands) as 33,068 with 413 carding machines, 427 fulling mills, and 26 cotton factories. The total value of woolen manufactures for the United States in the same year was esti mated at $25,608,788. From this time the domestic manufacture seems to have fallen off rapidly, and the succeeding census returns must be taken as indi cating mainly the reproduction of fac tories.
The total production of wool in the United States in 1919 was 307,459,000 pounds, from 35,979,000 fleeces. The State having the largest wool production was Wyoming, with 33,415,000 pounds; Idaho was second, with 22,145,000 pounds; Montana third, with 17,750,000 pounds; Utah fourth, with 15,800,000 pounds; and Texas fifth, with 14,986,000 pounds. Other States producing over 5,000,000 pounds annually were Cali fornia, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Washington, South Dakota, Arizona, Colorado, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, and Pennsylvania. There were in 1919 444,892,834 pounds of raw wool im ported in the United States, with a value of $19,486,001.