1 
Vol. LXXVII. 
Publishpd Wcekiv by The Rural rublishins Co., 
3n:! \V. .lOth St., New York. Price One Dollar a Year. 
NEW YORK, DECEMBER 28, 
1018. 
Entered as Seeond-Class Matter. .Tunc 20. bOTO, at the Post 4'"il t 
Office at New York, N. Y., under the Act of March 3, 1879. • 
The Woolen Stocking Hung Up 
The 35-Cent Dollar in Wool? 
HAVE just l>o(Mi on ii little shollI)illJ^ tour witli 
Mr.s. L.. and diiiiii.t; tlu' oiicratioii one luirchase 
\va.s made that set me tliiiikint:. and. •\vliotiier it he 
human nature or a somehow acquii’*'*! hahit, it jiro- 
vides a personal proof of how ea.^v it is to stand hy 
while friend or nei.ijhhor is ex]»erienciii 2 : joy or sor- 
low. pro.sperity or calamity, only to have the knowl¬ 
edge strike us on the hack, so to speak, from which 
it glances or rolls off liki* an Ajiril shower'from the 
back of our waddling friend of the barnyard. But 
wbcii the ex'iierience comes home. ()! Christmas is 
nearing, and a jiair of nice home-kiiit woolen socks 
is always an acceptable gift for grandfather, so 
(•noiigh wool (yarn) is purchased for that puriio.^e. 
One (piarter pound, and the price is ,$1.2.'> Of course, 
when we con.sider father’s comfort, we don’t mind 
the’ oiie-twenty-tive. but, considering the fact that 
right here on my desk lies a hill of sale for some 
M'ool of this year’s shearing, which brought (>7 cents 
per pound, and lo, the "calamity” has come home! 
Have you any method hy which you can ligure out a 
."5-cent dollar on that deal’/ I asked the merchant 
how much per iiouiid for wool, and he replied Jjtl.Tij. 
I have made no extensive investigation of the matter, 
but will venture the guess that more coiiHuiiirrs will 
buy for one pair of socks, one-fourth pound, than will 
buy hy the pound, so we cannot be far wrong in using 
per pound as a basis for tiguring. 
Now I have sold my raw material, in wool, at (>7 
cents per pound, and agree with our merchant friend 
when he said "that’s a big price for wool,” and have 
paid $"* per pound for the same wool (not actually I 
in what’;' 'I'he linished jiroduct? No, not yet. hut 
only for wool worked up into condition to begin the 
tiiiishod product. 
Our object in this discussion is not to find the ex¬ 
tremes in prices between raw material and linished 
product, nor do we try to trace the finest fiber of 
wool to be linished into an article of perhaps lux¬ 
ury ratlier than service or necessity, but to u.se an 
ordinary case in eveiTday practice. The wool sold 
was from grade and purebred Shropshires in fair 
condition, and the fleeces were, I think, in fair aver¬ 
age farm condition. 
The wool bought was of the ordinary .sort and 
legularly sold for the making of ordinary articles of 
wear, and we choose the very useful article, men’s 
socks, of which hundreds of thousands of jiairs have 
been made in our American homes during the bust 
few months. Inquiry of some of the best knitters in 
this comniunity brings the information that a jiair 
of socks may be made in a day of eight hours, and 
that .$2 would be a fair price to be paid for the work. 
Certainly $2 per day is not a high wage for skilled 
labor, especially under present conditions, and 1 be¬ 
lieve a good knitter may rightly be classed as a 
skilled laborer. 
Now then to that .$5 per pound for material for 
four pairs of socks. Let us add the $2 iier pair for 
building them, and we have $13 per pound for the 
linished article in wool. Can you find a 35-cont dol¬ 
lar there? By all the rules in my old Osgood’s 
Arithmetic. I can’t fetch it. 
It may not be orthodox sentiment to say that there 
arc some tasks on the farm where the farmer, espe¬ 
cially if he is Avorking alone, as many of us are do¬ 
ing now. has splendid oiiportiinity for (hinking out 
other problems than (ho one immediately in liand, 
but it’s true at least for mo, and during one of these 
tasks a picture came to me of grandmothers and 
spinning-wheels. 
Of course we of the cliaracteristic American hustle 
are not likely to bring back the spinning-wheel into 
general or practical u.se. We would not if we could 
bring back those grandmothers, but. if (hose women, 
by working wi(h hands and feet in co-oyieration with 
(hose Avheel.s. could take a home-grown fleece and 
furn It into yarn and later into a .sock that never 
was known under any sort of conditions to “wear out 
in thriH* days." cannot some hustling Ainerican or for¬ 
eign genius produce, if he has not already, a small 
but practical machine for hand or foot or light motor 
power and suitable for home use that will moderui'/.e 
what our forebears did so quaintly, picture.squely and 
patiently? 
But here again comes a picture from modern ex- 
iierience. That genius, whoever he he. must be :i 
broad-minded, stout-hearted, public-spirited .soul, or 
his young plant will probably be crushed hy the iron 
heel of "big business,” or if allowed to grow for 
awhile the hud will be clipped with a golden prun¬ 
ing shears and liunianity will be little benefited by 
the invention? Why? Because $13. minus (57 cents, 
equals “big busine.ss.” 
It requires no stretch of imagaination to see that 
here, as in many other cases, .some sort of adjust¬ 
ment must be made. .lust how or where I am not 
now prepared to say, but it seems to me tlie adjust¬ 
ment must be made dowu on the second half of the 
MerrII Chrifitmas! From Mill'inp Shorthorns of the Otis Herd. Fig. 66S 
