264 TYPES AND MARKET CLASSES OF LIVE STOCK 



If a Merino sheep in the east grows a fleece less than 

 inches long, it grades as XX or X, or as Fine Unwashed. Mar- 

 ket usage has decreed that XX and X as grade names shall be 

 used only in referring to washed clothing wools. XX is a some- 

 what finer wool than X. Fine Unwashed corresponds to XX 

 and X, but shrinks more in scouring. The same sheep in the 

 west grows a fleece that grades as Fine Clothing or Fine Medium 

 Clothing. Fine Clothing corresponds to XX, and Fine Medium 

 Clothing corresponds to X, except that the territory wool shrinks 

 more than the domestic. 



Similar comparisons might be made for the half-blood 

 grade, the three-eighths-blood grade, etc. If we substitute the 

 general term "Fine" for all the grades thus far discussed, we may 

 say that each class of wool has the following grades: 



Fine 



Half-blood 



Three-eighths-blood 



Quarter-blood 



Low quarter-blood 



Low, coarse, common, or braid. 



In the early days of the American wool trade, the half- 

 blood, three-eighths-blood, and quarter-blood grades referred 

 supposedly to wools from sheep of half, three-eighths, and quar- 

 ter Merino blood, but they have no such significance now. Wools 

 grading as high as half-blood can come from sheep having no 

 trace of Merino blood. On the other hand, quarter-blood would 

 rarely come from a sheep containing any Merino blood. Low 

 quarter-blood is a grade lower than quarter-blood, and braid 

 is the lowest grade of all. It usually refers to luster wool such 

 as might come from a Lincoln or a Cotswold sheep. The grading 

 of wool in the wool houses is done by expert graders who know 

 wools so well that at a glance they can determine the grade to 

 which the wool belongs and the kind of material into which the 

 wool will be made. Many of these wool graders may never 

 have seen a sheep in fleece, neither do they know the breeds of 

 sheep and the characteristic .fleeces. Hence, the wool grade 

 does not depend upon the breed of sheep, and the wool from 

 different individuals of the same flock and breed may be graded 

 differently Wool, then, is graded on the market according to 

 its merit, regardless of the breeding of the sheep which grew it, 

 although some of the names of the various grades may seem to 

 indicate the breeding of the sheep. 



