THE WOOLGROWER AND THE WOOL TRADE. 



15 



COMBING WOOLS. 



Delaine. 



Half-blood. 



Thr ee-eighths-b lood . 



Quarter-blood. 



Low quarter-blood. 



Braid. 



CLOTHING WOOLS. 



XX and X, washed or fine unwashed. 

 Half-blood clothing. 

 Three-eighths-blood clothing. 

 Quarter-blood clothing. 



All of the above grades are not always given in the market report. 

 Sometimes not all of them are to be found upon the market and 

 they are eliminated. 



Many years ago there were two higher grades, Picklock and XXX, 

 representing, respectively, the wool of the Silesian Merino and the 

 American and Silesian Merino cross. These grades are no longer 

 used upon the market, but they are occasionally seen in some of 

 the mills making very fine woolens. More often these qualities 

 occur only as sorts representing parts of fleeces. The amount of 

 this wool produced, however, is very small and is still diminishing. 



The XX grade represents the fineness or quality of an ideal Amer- 

 ican Merino. Delaine wools are combing wools of this and of X 

 quality. Sometimes they are quoted Fine Delaine, being X quality 

 and above, and Medium Delaine, being about half blood in quality. 

 They are not necessarily from the Delaine type of Merino. The 

 X quality is supposedly the wool from a sheep containing three- 

 quarters Merino blood. It is sometimes referred to as three-quarters 

 blood. Market usage has decreed that XX and X as grade names 

 shall be used only in referring to washed clothing wools, but the 

 terms are sometimes used to indicate the same, degrees of quality in 

 other wools. Fine unwashed contains these same qualities, but these 

 wools are heavier shrinking. 



Half-blood, three-eighths-blood, and quarter-blood grades, as the 

 terms were coined, referred supposedly to wools from sheep of half, 

 three-eighths, and quarter Merino blood, but they have no such 

 significance now. Wools grading as high as half blood can come 

 from sheep having no trace of Merino blood; the purebred South- 

 down, for instance, produces wool that sometimes grades that high, 

 and this breed has been kept pure from outside blood for centuries. 

 On the other hand, quarter-blood would rarely come from a sheep 

 containing any Merino blood. Low quarter blood is a grade lower 

 than quarter blood, and braid is the lowest grade of all. It usually 

 refers to luster wool, such as might come from a Lincoln or a Cotswold 

 sheep. 



Washed wools. — The practice of washing the sheep has given rise 

 to the terms of washed, unmerchantable, and unwashed. The 

 unmerchantable wool is not unsalable wool, but that which has been 

 poorly washed — sometimes the sheep are merely l ' driven through the 



