SHEEP UNITED STATES, NEW ZEALAND, AUSTKALIA. 31 



sitate cooperation among growers to an extent not likely to be possible 

 for some years at least. 



The only other means of securing the results sought in auction 

 selling is to consign classed or graded clips to commission saleshouses 

 and permit them to combine different parts of various clips such as 

 may be necessary to make up offerings of size suitable to the trade. 

 This is the practice of interlotting described on page 26. Such prac- 

 tice can succeed only when the grower feels that his selling agent, 

 whether it be a cooperative or a private concern, will act fairly and 

 use only wools of similar value in the combined offerings. 



Such selling facilities, or any others that are practised, can by no 

 means remove the need of selling houses or firms to get the wool to 

 the manufacturers. Such intermediate agencies may in the future 

 consist more largely than at present of commission sellers, though it 

 is unlikely that the time will ever come when no wool will be bought 

 and held for market rises. 



COOPERATIVE SHEARING SHEDS IN NEW ZEALAND. 



In New Zealand the sheep raisers are equally as determined as those 

 in Australia to have their wool clips well put up. A few farmers 

 keeping very small flocks do not skirt or class their fleeces, and such 

 clips commonly go to speculators, who do the skirting and classing 

 and in selling combine various purchases so reworked. 



Some owners of medium-sized flocks (1,000 to 5,000) cooperate in 

 the ownership and operation of a common shearing plant. Each 

 sheep owner using the shed holds shares of stock in the plant in pro- 

 portion to the size of his flock. Prior to shearing time the stock- 

 holders meet and agree upon a salary for a superintendent selected by 

 them for the season's run. This superintendent hires shearers, shed 

 hands, and a classer, purchases supplies, and in fact does all the busi- 

 ness connected with the work, delivering to each stockholder his 

 classed clip in bales, and the season's expense is paid by the stock- 

 holders on the basis of the number of sheep shorn for each. 



EDUCATION OF WOOL GROWERS AND THEIR EMPLOYEES. 



Australia has five agricultural colleges, with a total annual at- 

 tendance of about 1,000 students. At each college students are given 

 as a part of the agricultural course instruction in the handling of 

 the wool at shearing time, and are required to assist in the work. 

 Other sheep than those owned upon the college farm are sometimes 

 -li'.rn in order to prolong the run and permit each student to take 

 pari in each phase of the work. Bales of unskilled or unclassed 

 woo] are often purchased to be used as Laboratory materia] in teach- 

 ing the best methods of preparing a clip of wool for the market. 



