30 BULLETIN 313, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



to determine definitely which class of sheep is most profitable under 

 his conditions. 



It is yet too early to say how far and in what way the principles of 

 Australian wool classing and selling can profitably be adopted in the 

 United States. There is nothing in the nature of American sheep or 

 ranch conditions that constitutes an insurmountable obstacle to the 

 employment of even the details of Australian shearing and classing 

 of wool. The great and quite firmly established difference is in the 

 methods of selling. The plan of preparing wool as followed in 

 Australia is possible there because their auction system of selling 

 permits a ready sale of a lot as small as one bale, or 400 pounds of 

 wool. The minimum size of offering that can be satisfactorily dis- 

 posed of in the American wool trade is 6,000 pounds, and few buyers 

 care to purchase lots of less than 10,000 pounds. This is true because 

 most American wools are purchased by manufacturers' buying rep- 

 resentatives in large lines of single grades from dealers who have 

 purchased numerous entire clips at a lump price per pound. Ordi- 

 narily each clip, contains a considerable amount of each of a number 

 of grades. By combining the few thousand pounds, say, of fine 

 staple wool from one clip with the same kind from one or more 

 other clips, a marketable offering can be made up. 



The success of ranch grading of wools is dependent upon the estab- 

 lishing of such selling arrangements as will permit the grower to 

 receive a report showing the weight and selling price of each part of 

 his clip. Under such a method of selling as is used in Australia a 

 mill buyer can secure from any day's offering as large an amount as 

 he needs of any one grade by buying lots of varying amounts of that 

 grade, selected from over a million pounds that may be sold in the 

 auction lasting only a few hours. 



Since it is the growers who need and desire a readjustment of 

 American wool-selling methods, it is they who must take the initia- 

 tive and incur any risks connected with new methods. It is quite 

 plain that the benefits of selling graded wool can not be realized when 

 the clip is sold on the ranch and as a whole. It can not reasonably 

 be expected that speculative buyers, accustomed to buying whole 

 clips, will buy a clip in six or seven parts, neither can the manu- 

 facturer in need of, say, 50,000 pounds of a certain class of wool send 

 his buyers to the ranches to bid upon even 10,000 or 15,000 pounds of 

 such wool at a place and then more often than not fail to make a 

 purchase. 



The Australian style of auction could not be inaugurated with 

 offerings of classed and catalogued wools equal to less than 20 per 

 cent of the American clip. With 50,000,000 pounds of wool suitably 

 put up and offered by auction for a number of j^ears, that system of 

 doing business might be established. But such a move would neces- 



