354 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



In every branch of trade and industry there is an active and 

 inactive period, or in other words, there is a slump period some 

 time during the year, and the handling and manufacture of wool 

 is no exception to this well founded regulation. This period, known 

 to the woolen manufacturers as the "cleaning season," is during 

 the spring and early summer, and during this inactive period the 

 manufacturer reduces his force, works up odds and ends, repairs 

 and overhauls his equipment, solicits orders, and is not in the 

 market for supplies. On the other hand, the dealer has invariably 

 disposed of his desirable stock, and if he has wools on hand they 

 are of an inferior grade and are offered for sale at greatly re- 

 duced prices. It is during this same period that wool is being 

 shorn in the western states. 



The wool grower of the past finds himself in a very perplexing 

 position; without an open market for his product and with no 

 available storing facilities at his command to protect his clip from 

 the weather, and a pressing need for funds with which to pay his 

 employes, grow his crops and conduct his business. They have in 

 numerous instances disposed of their clips at prices ranging from 

 ten to twenty-five per cent below the market value. 



The storage house will entirely eliminate these unsatisfactory 

 conditions. 



With the present methods there is entirely too much waste 

 and carelessness in the handling of our clips. In the first place 

 much wool is shorn in a very reckless manner, the shearers' entire 

 endeavor being to fleece as many sheep as possible. They haggle 

 the wool and leave from one to two pounds on the sheep's back, 

 thereby unconsciously depreciating the value of the fleece. In the 

 second place, the wool is collected, tied in bundles and placed in 

 bags regardless of grade, texture or general character. A little 

 attention to this particular feature of our industry would have 

 a tendency to increase the value of our fleeces. 



Another matter worthy of attention is the unnecessary 

 handling of our clips before they reach the manufacturer. Large 

 quantities of hides are shipped directly from the packing houses 

 to the tanneries, and hundreds of thousands of bales of cotton go 

 directly from the grower to the mills without delay or trans-ship- 

 ment, but wool is not only handled and rehandled and directed 

 many times from its destination, but is carted and hauled across 

 the seaboard towns in a most uneconomical and unbusinesslike 

 manner. Cattle, sheep and horses are delivered at the stockyards ; 

 grain, cotton and other kindred commodities at a storehouse. In 



