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can readily afford to give a better price for it. The wool 

 of the world amounts to 1,800,000,000 pounds, and when 

 we consider the vast numbers of persons concerned in pre- 

 paring this enormous amount for the wear and tear of man, 

 we can form some idea of its commercial importance. It 

 has first to be raised by the tarmer, sheared, and the fleece 

 sent to market. Usually it passes into the hands of three 

 or lour tradesman before it reaches the manufacturer. All 

 these middle men are given employment, and the farmer too 

 derives part of his living from it. After it goes to the fac- 

 tory it is there scoured, dyed, oiled, plucked, carded, combed, 

 broke, drawn, roved, spun, reeled, woven, all these differ- 

 ent processes employing many thousands of laborers, and 

 supporting their families. It has then to pass through the 

 hands of the jobber, the wholesale and retail merchants, 

 and at last comes back to the very man who sheared it from 

 the sheep's back. But how different it is then. The rough, 

 homely jeans or liiisey has the same parentage with the 

 glossy cloth or cassimere. The hod carrier gets his woolen 

 jacket from the same source with the belle in her high- 

 sounding and beautiful delaines. All these differences are 

 the result of sorting. The perfection of its manufacture, 

 and the wonderful differences in the fabrics cannot better 

 be realized than by the fact that in ordinary spinning one 

 pound of wool usually stretches to three-fourths of a mile, 

 in superfine spinning it stretches to 22 miles ; while the 

 very finest and choicest bits of wool will reach a distance of 

 95 miles to a pound. Of this finest quality 1,500 fibres 

 laid side by side will cover one inch, and a compact bundle 

 of one square inch will require 2,225,000 fibres. By these 

 statements one can readily see the importance of not injur- 

 ing a single fibre of wool, and in fact the necessity of the 

 great care prescribed in these pages for the improvement 

 rather than deterioration of a staple that not only clothes 

 the farmer, but gives employment to so many of the inhab- 

 >tants of our sphere . 



