2 BULLETIX 1100, U. S. DEPAKT^tEXT OE AGRICULTURE. 



scouring of all the wool. Separate determinations of the grease and 

 dirt content of each fleece furnish information of great usefulness for 

 sheep-breeding studies in connection with their application to wool 

 improvement, but the expense of separate determinations for so 

 large a number of fleeces creates the necessity for working with 

 samples instead of scouring entire fleeces. A sample weighing 

 approximately 1 pound is therefore taken from the side of each 

 fleece at the time the sheep are sheared. These samples are then 

 sent direct to the Bureau of Animal Industry wool laboratory, near 

 Beltsville, Md., and stored in a dry room until the}' are used in the 



Fig. 1. — Wool containers, balance, and record booK. The closed container sho^vs the can oi raw wool 

 ready for shipping and storing at the -wool laboratory, Beltsville, Md. Upon preparing the wool for 

 scouring, the coatainer is opened and the wool is placed in the basket shown on the balance. A sample 

 sheet of the data kept in the record book is shown in Table 7. 



scouring test. Most of the fleeces studied to date have been grown 

 on the bureau's experimental range sheep at the United States sheep 

 experiment station, near Dubois, Idaho, although fleeces grown at 

 the bureau's farm sheep stations near Beltsville, Md., and Middle- 

 bury, Vt., are also being sampled for use in this investigation. 



EXPERIMENTAL WORK. 



INDEX FIGURES FOR GREASE AND DIRT. 



Specially designed apparatus has been constructed to remove the 

 grease by the use of gasohne, without loss of dirt, and later in another 

 apparatus the wool is washed to remove all the dirt. 



Approximately 250 grams of each sample of wool as it comes 

 from the storao;e room are used for the scourins: test. The sam- 



