TYPES AND MARKET CLASSES OF LIVE STOCK 269 



The stained and gray sort is not usually made unless white 

 goods are to be manufactured. Shorts consist of short wool 

 such as grows about the face, or it may be due to double cutting 

 in shearing. Fribs are short, sweaty, and dungy locks. Clips 

 are locks so incrusted with foreign material that they cannot 

 be scoured clean, but must be clipped off. The string is that 

 used in tying the fleeces. Loss of weight in sorting depends 

 upon the amount of sand and loose dirt in the wool. 



Other off sorts are often made from wools of various sec- 

 tions. Some of these are tags, paint locks, and seedy. Tags 

 are large dung locks which are badly stained and have a very 

 high shrinkage. Paint locks require clipping off the painted 

 ends of the locks. Seedy wool contains weed seeds, soft burs, 

 etc. It must often be carbonized before using, as explained 

 in a later paragraph. 



Wool pulling. Wool pulleries may be divided into two 

 groups those owned by packers and forming a part of the by- 

 products division of packing plants, and those owned and oper- 

 ated independent of packing establishments. The wool pullery 

 of a packing plant receives pelts daily, direct from the killing 

 floor. They are at once placed in vats of cold water, which 

 takes out all of the animal heat and removes some of the dirt 

 and blood. The soaking continues from 12 to 24 hours. Pack- 

 ing plants not equipped with pulleries salt their pelts, and when 

 a quantity has accumulated send them to a pullery. Salted 

 pelts are soaked 36 hours, as it requires considerable time to 

 dissolve the salt out of the hide. When removed from the vats, 

 the pelts are given mechanical treatment in a scrubbing machine 

 which washes them in a spray of water, completing the removal 

 of dirt, and leaving the fleece in an attractive, white condition. 

 The wet pelts are then put in a centrifugal wringer which throws 

 out the water to such an extent that the fleece is made very 

 nearly dry. The pelts are next taken to a room where they are 

 spread, fleece downward, upon wire screens and painted on the 

 inner surface with a thick liquid bearing the trade name of 

 ' 'Depilatory/' consisting of a mixture of sodium sulphide and 

 slaked lime. Within 2 to 4 hours after this treatment the wool 

 fibers become loosened and easily part from the hide, coming 

 out by the roots when pulled. 



Before pulling, however, the pelts are taken to large rooms 

 where they are spread out on the floor, fleece upwards, being 

 grouped or classified according to the nature of the fleece. The 



