10 BULLETIN 206, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



BLACK WOOL. 



No other of the "off sorts" do more damage by being packed with 

 the other wool than the black fleeces. After wool has been packed in 

 bags for a time the fleeces ' ' freeze ' ' together more or less ; that is, locks 

 from one fleece adhere to neighboring ones. A lock of black wool 

 in any wool intended for white goods is capable of doing untold dam- 

 age. To be sure, not all wool goes into white goods, but the dealer, 

 when he is having the wool graded, often does not know to whom it will 

 be sold, nor for what purposes it will be used. The only way to be safe 

 is to pick off all the black locks from the adjacent fleeces. Black wool 

 has been in demand for making a natural gray in the past, but at the 

 present time it is not especially sought after and it sells at from 1 to 2 

 cents a pound less than the corresponding grade of white wool. When 

 shearing takes place the blacks should be cut out and sheared by 

 themselves, and their wool packed separately and so labeled. 



COTTED OR MATTED FLEECES. 



The badly cotted or matted fleeces should be placed separately, 

 because it is necessary to run them through an opener, which is not 

 done with ordinary wool. This necessarily causes the breakage of 

 fibers to increase. There are really two kinds of cotts, hard and soft. 

 A soft cott, if it is not in too bad condition, may go through with the 

 other wool. 



EFFECTS OF DIPPING. 



The effects of dipping upon wools are not always the same. In the 

 Southwest, where there is considerable sand and dirt in the fleeces, it 

 tends to lighten them, while in the Northwest it is said that dipping 

 increases the weight. Most of the dips that have been used do not 

 have any very harmful effect upon the wool, but dealers and manu- 

 facturers claim that lime-and-sulphur and caustic-soda dips are 

 harmful. However, no tests have been made in America upon the 

 spinning qualities of dipped and undipped wools. 



HAND AND MACHINE SHEARING. 



The practice of hand shearing is still quite common in parts of the 

 West. Ridges of wool are left over the sheep's body, and the short 

 wool of the head and belly is largely left on the sheep. Much of the 

 wool is shorter than it would be if machine shorn, and a considerable 

 portion of it is double cut. The large amount of short and cut 

 fibers results in a greater percentage of noil in the combing wools 

 and reduces their value accordingly. Many wools grade as clothing 

 instead of combing solely because of being hand shorn. 



In some sections where rapid changes of weather are experienced, 

 the sheepmen object to machine shearing on the ground that the 

 sheep will blister during hot weather if shorn too closely. Losses 



