126 <Pk RURAL NEW-YORKER 
The Manufacturer’s Side of Wool Prices 
Who Gets the 65 Cents ? 
[Regarding the 35-cent dollar in wool, 
we follow our usual plan of trying to give 
both sides a hearing. So here is the man¬ 
ufacturer’s side of the case. Granting all 
Mr. Haight says, it seems evident that 
practically every one of the various hand¬ 
lers here mentioned obtains a fixed price 
for his labor and a larger profit than the 
farmer. The latter takes what others 
see fit to give him, and even with Mr. 
Haight’s best showing he has—a 35-cent 
dollar.] 
May I reply to Mr. E. J. Liekert’s ar¬ 
ticle in your December 2S issue, as I fear 
that many of your readers may gain a 
wrong impression of big business and the 
real value of the 35-cent dollar from his 
statements, which are incorrect? 
In the first place, Mr. Liekert did not 
sell his wool for G7c a pound, but sold the 
grease and dirt with the wool, and if this 
wool shrank only 50 per cent, he actually 
received $1.34 for his wool. The buyer 
had to make some profit, which we will 
say was two cents a pound. He shipped 
it to some dealer who sorted it and added 
another two cents. The manufacturer 
who carded it and combed it lost about 
one-third in noil6, chaff and burrs re¬ 
moved ; but, allowing for the value of 
the noils, another 24c must be added to 
the original cost of the wool before it is 
ready to be spun. Allowing 10c for the 
spinner, 5c for twisting and hanking, and 
5c for shrinkage, it would cost $1.82 for 
the yarn used in the gray sock if it was 
all white wool, but in all probability it 
was a 40 per cent gray mixture and it 
cost 15c- a pound to dye the black wool, 
which makes $1.88 for the wool and 
direct labor. To this must be added 20c 
for overhead charges, such as coal, re¬ 
pairs, power and office labor, aud if the 
manufacturer made 50c a pound for his 
profit after he had p*aid a five per cent 
commission for selling it. the jobber 
would have to pay at least $2.71. Owing 
to the high cost of traveling and other ex¬ 
penses which the jobber is under, he ex¬ 
pects to make a profit of 33 per cent, or 
87c for buying this yarn in large quan¬ 
tities and having it ready so that when 
the retailer wants to buy a few pounds 
he can get it without delay. The retailer 
paid $3.58 for this pound of yarn and 
adds to it 33^ per cent for selling and 
profit, or $1.18, for this yarn in quarter 
pound skeins, sometimes charging the 
amount, up and having to pay interest on 
it, which must include an occasional bad 
debt. So if be made no more than a legit¬ 
imate profit, this yarn, made from the (17c 
wool, would actually have cost the con¬ 
sumer $4.76. This leaves 24c for big 
business to pay for^iny losses in bad debts 
or from depreciation of materials pur¬ 
chased and larger shrinkage on the grease 
wool than 50 per cent estimated, or re¬ 
placement of expensive machinery and re¬ 
pairs. 
Now let us figure the cost of the $1.25 
socks. If thesp socks weighed three 
pounds to the dozen it would require 3^ 
pounds of yarn, allowing for the necessary 
waste and shinkage in washing, or $16.66 
for the yarn in the dozen pairs. Your 
report on the various kinds of socks being 
sold in the New York market which al¬ 
lows $2 for knitting a single pair would 
put the average manufacturer out of busi¬ 
ness, as he does not receive more than 
15c a pair for knitting such a sock, and 
this must include his profit, so that if he 
had to buy this yarn at the retail price the 
same as the consumer, and received only 
15c a pair for knitting, finishing and sell¬ 
ing. this dozen would cost him $18.46, 
and if he sold them for $1.25 a pair he 
would actually lose $3.46 a dozen, or 
about 25c a pair, and even big business 
could not stand such a loss on any large 
amount of business. 
Now to discuss this question from the 
farmer’s standpoint. The large majority 
of farmers want to buy their mej-chandi.se 
from th‘» retail store and would rather pay 
the additional price than to write a letter. 
The farmer works hard for his money, and 
statements which tend to make him jeal¬ 
ous of the manufacturer may do both an 
injury. The city man could not live with¬ 
out the farmer, Avho produces his food ; 
neither could the farmer live without the 
city man, who purchases his product, and 
they should work together, each one try¬ 
ing to serve the other to the best of their 
ability, making a fair and legitimate 
profit, rather than each discounting the 
other’s labor. To illustrate, the knitting 
mills of which I am president would very 
gladly wash, card and spin into yarn the 
farmers’ wool if it was possible to do so, 
but it requires at least 100 pounds of 
grease wool to make a batch for the mod¬ 
ern wool cards. It costs about $25 in loss 
of production and labor to change from 
one little batch to another; therefore, the 
manufacturer mixes his wool in from one 
to ten thousand pound batches, and tries 
to keep his machinery running for as long 
a time as possible on a single kind of yarn. 
If he should attempt to wash and card a 
single fleece of wool the loss in waste 
would be about 75 per cent, and the fann¬ 
er would be sure that he was being rob¬ 
bed when *he received only 2% pounds of 
yarn from a 10-pound fleece. This loss 
would be greatly reduced in a larger batch, 
as it would requii-e no more to fill up the 
cards for 300 pounds than it would for 
10 pounds. Then the modern spinning 
machine, with 340 spindles, must have 50 
or 60 pounds of roving in order to spin 
one pound, so that it would be impossible 
to spin the 2 y 2 pounds which might come 
through the cards. It is only large pi*o- 
duction that has made it possible for the 
manufacturer to produce a single pail of 
socks for 35c, and should we return to the 
old-fashioned spinning wheel and pay only 
$2 a day for our labor, such socks would 
have to sell for $3 or $4 a pair instead of 
$1.25. 
. Now, what is the solution? I have ad¬ 
vocated for a long time that every farmer 
should keep a few sheep to clean up the 
weeds along the fences and to furnish the 
family with fresh meat and warm cloth¬ 
ing. I am not willing to retract my state¬ 
ments, and, therefore, suggest a way by 
which the farmer and manufacturer might 
work together to mutual advantage. If 
the farmers in a community would get 
together, say in a Grange meeting, and 
determine how many pail’s of woolen 
socks or stockings their families would 
require for the Winter, and then get 
enough fleeces together to make such an 
amount, they could ship sevei-al hundred 
pounds of wool to a manufacturer who 
could afford to card, spin and knit it into 
hosiery, or who would be willing to take 
the wool in payment for hosiery made 
from other wool of equal value and sell 
them at the same price he would sell to 
the retailer, because he would then get his 
own and the jobber’s pi-ofit by eliminat¬ 
ing the extra handling. Our knitting 
mills have attempted to serve the farmer 
in this way, and have had wool shipped 
to them in lots ranging from 400 to 800 
pounds to be made up into woolen bats 
for bed comfortables, or the best yarn 
that could be made for knitting sweaters 
and other articles. 
If we wish to increase the value of the 
35-cent dollar it should be by co-opei-ation 
and concentration of our efforts, rather 
than going back to the old methods of 
hand carding and spinning. The absolute 
folly of many of our women knitting $5 
yarn into woolen socks for the Red Cross, 
as is being done today, when they might 
be employing their time to so much better 
advantage in other ways, is certainly re¬ 
vealed by the above figures. I know of 
one Red Cross chapter which was assessed 
sevoi*al hundred pairs of socks. They 
could buy these socks ready knit for less 
One Ride of the Sheep Business 
money than they could buy the yarn, and 
yet the Red Cross headquarters would 
not accept the socks unless they were 
hand knit, and many of the women were 
indignant and some refused to waste a 
day knitting a pair of socks which could 
be made by the modei-n machinery in three 
minutes. The farmer’s wife has enough 
to do without knitting socks or spinning 
yarn. Let us not add to her present bur¬ 
dens, but let us all begin the New Y r ear 
January 25, 1910 
with a hearty spirit of co-operation. 
Michigan. LOUIS p. HAIGHT. 
R. N.-Y.—Mr. Haight gives only one 
side of the case in his last paragraph. 
As for the Red Cross knitters, one of them 
makes the following comment and another 
side of it is given on page 137. "The 
wool bought by that great organization is 
bought at the manufacturing cost. Women 
don’t waste a day knitting a pair of socks. 
They knit in odd minutes, instead of doing 
embi-oidei-y or filet crochet or playing 
cards. At home we all knit when talking 
to, callers, instead of sitting with enjpty 
hands. The women who were indignant 
about it either didn’t knit or didn’t want 
to knit. Most women like to do it. One 
can knit with a poor light, and I find it 
soothing and restful. My English sister- 
in-law knits as she walks around, or in the 
dark—not when other work could be done. 
All authorities agree that hand-knitted 
socks wear longer than machine work.” 
Steer or Cow Beef 
Can you inform me how to tell good 
beef from that of poor quality, by its ap¬ 
pearance? How can we tell steer beef 
from that of a cow? F. L. H. 
In reply to your inquiry fi-om Massa¬ 
chusetts, I may say that the carcass of a 
steer may be distinguished from that of a 
cow by the fact that the hindquarters are 
better developed in steers and the pelvic 
opening of the cow is considerably larger 
than that of a steer. A steer is usually 
better covered with fat. although this need 
not necessarily be the case. Cows of the 
dairy breeds, particularly Jerseys and 
Guernseys, produce a carcass with yel¬ 
low fat. However, steers of these breeds 
will have the same colored fat, and cows 
of the Holstein and Ayrshire breeds will 
not have the yellow fat. but will have a 
white fat like the steers of these breeds 
or any animal of the beef bi-eeds. 
The flesh of dairy cows of the Guernsey 
and Jersey breeds is bluish in color, while 
that of Holsteins and Ayrshires and all 
beef breeds is of a bright crimson color. 
The texture of the meat from a steer car¬ 
cass is finer than that of an older cow, 
and the marbling or fat laid in between 
the bundles of muscle fiber is greater 
than in the cow. Then, too, the pei-cent- 
age of meat to bone is usually greater in 
the steer. K. J. S. 
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