8o THE SHEEP AND WOOL INDUSTRY 



quality, but the top contains so many short fibres that you could 

 spin no more than 50*5 from it, yet it is called a 7o's quality top. 

 In making a very fine Italian cloth, where the warp is cotton with 

 a worsted wool yarn for weft, a very strong and exceedingly fine 

 yarn is required, because the worsted wool weft yarn goes over 

 four of the cotton warp threads for every one which it goes under. 

 Thus the face of the cloth will consist of practically all worsted 



Showing the lengths of the fibres contained in a 6o's quality top, 

 the longest being 5^ inches and the shortest being if inches. 

 This top was combed from wool which had not been sorted, 

 consequently only about 20 per cent, of the fibres in the top 

 are long enough to spin out to 6o's. The shorter fibres are 

 suitable for hosiery yarn. When the fibres vary in length, as 

 is the case in this top, it is impossible to spin them out to 

 anything like the number of counts their quality denotes. 



yarn, and any knotty or bumpy sections in it would show up at 

 once. Therefore worsted yarns suited for this work must be very 

 even, and this is got by spinning the yarn only from a top where 

 the fibres are of an even and good length. 



Tops are nowadays cheapened by blending in all sorts of ways. 

 You can sometimes buy 6o's tops cheaper than you would make 

 them from the greasy wool if you bought the latter at its true 



