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 years, that system of 
doing business might be established. But such a move would neces- 
