166 WASHING SHEEP CONSIDERED. 



farmer's shearing his sheep a month earlier and unwashed, if 

 he chooses to do so, even if we should admit, for the sake of 

 argument, that all the reasons assigned for it have no 

 real weight ? If the farmer sends dirt to market, he, not the 

 buyer, pays for the transportation. "Washed or unwashed, 

 the wool must go through the same cleansing process. Am I 

 asked if the buyer has not the right to judge of the conditions 

 in which he shall voluntarily purchase a commodity with his 

 own money? By no sound principle, either of morals or 

 commerce, have any class of buyers a right to establish rules 

 of purchasing, not necessary to protect their own legitimate 

 interests, which are calculated to injure the legitimate 

 interests of producers. 



The rule that all wools shall be washed or subjected to a, 

 deduction of one-third to put them on a par with brook- 

 washed wools, operates very unequally. A large, highly 

 yolky ram, housed in the summer, will have at least two 

 pounds, and a ewe one pound, more yolk in its fleece than 

 would the same animal if unhoused in the summer. Should 

 the unwashed wool then sell at the same rate of shrinkage in 

 both cases? If we were to admit that one-third is a fair 

 average^ rate of shrinkage on all unwashed wools, is there any 

 justice in making the producer of the cleaner ones suifer for 

 the benefit of the person who chooses to grow yolkier wools, 

 or who houses his sheep in summer to preserve all their 

 yolk? Does the manufacturer wish to pay a premium on the 

 production and preservation of yolk in the wool ? 



No manufacturer claims that the present rule of shrinkage 

 operates strictly equitably in all cases ; but some manufacturers 

 contend that a discrimination in unwashed Avools would be 

 impracticable, or at least inconvenient, and that if the present 

 rule injures the interest of the producer, all he has to do is to 

 wash his wool. It would be difficult for any one to show 

 that there is any greater practical inconvenience in deciding 

 between the different amounts of yolk in unwashed wool than 

 there is in deciding between the different amounts of foul 

 seed in wheat and other varieties of grain, of useless weeds 

 in hay, or even of yolk in washed wool / yet who thinks of 

 buying these impure commodities at a fixed rate of shrinkage ? 

 Still less excuse is there for preserving an arbitrary and 

 unequal rule, as a quasi punishment on growers who only 

 believe themselves consulting their own legitimate interests, 

 and who certainly are not invading those of others. 



The ground directly or impliedly assumed by some 



