1909.] The Financial Aspect of Sheep-washing. 3 



"Sheep-washing," wherein the opinion is expressed that 

 washing sheep before shearing is a waste of time and labour, 

 and as the writer is a wool salesman of some thirty years' 

 experience, his dictum must have greatly assisted in bring- 

 ing into fashion the method of marketing wool in the 

 unwashed condition. He states: "If it is on account of the 

 wool (that washing is done), I hope to be able to show that 

 farmers are incurring an annual expenditure and giving 

 themselves needless trouble, which in these bad times might 

 be avoided. . . . My experience ... is that unwashed 

 British wool finds a readier market to-day than the washed 

 wool. I have before me the views of several North Country 

 farmers who have carefully tested the matter, and in every 

 case, except one, the result to the grower has been advanta- 

 geous. ... If I was a farmer with clean grass land, I would 

 never wash a sheep again." This opinion of Mr. Hargreaves 

 will be referred to later. 



Seven years afterwards, in 1900, the Journal of the sister 

 Society — the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland 

 — contains an article on "Wool Growing and Wool 

 Showing," by Prof. John Scott, Edinburgh, wherein the 

 writer advocates the earlier view that "sheep should be pro- 

 perly washed before shearing. With coarse, low-priced wools 

 like the Scotch Blackfaced, it is different. They are chiefly 

 used in carpet manufacture, and as colour is not so important 

 there is less difference in the price of washed and unwashed 

 in their case, than in the finer breeds of wool. But there 

 is another good commercial reason why Scotch Blackfaced 

 wool is not washed. Large quantities of it are exported to 

 America, where carpet wools are admitted at a duty of 2J 

 cents on wool costing less than 6d. per lb., and 5 cents on 

 wool costing more than 6d. per lb. . . . All other sorts (of 

 wool) exported to America are charged 10 cents per lb. 

 duty, washed or unwashed, hence buyers who have $d. per 

 lb. duty to pay will pay it on wool and not on dirt." 



There is here a new argument for washing in the case of 

 the finer wools, viz., the duty the American buyer (and 

 he is a very important buyer) has to pay for weight of 

 material whether made up of wool or dirt. 



Returning once more to the Royal Agricultural Society's 



B 2 



