2. Shearing and Marketing of Fleece Wool
Wool is obtained from the sheep in two ways; it is either shorn from the live animal, or pulled from the skin of the slaughtered carcass.
Shearing
Australian System
Shearing was formerly done by hand. An expert was able to clip as many as one hundred head per day, but the average was less than half of that amount. The introduction of machine shearing has made it possible for one man to shear from 175 to 200 sheep in a day, and the fleece is very much more evenly clipped than formerly. Some merino breeds, known as type A, have so many folds of loose skin that machine shearing is not feasible, but except for these animals, and some of the type B or Rambouillet Merinos, almost all sheep are now shorn by machine, that is, where they are raised in numbers. Sheep raising in this country is not pursued with nearly so much care as, for instance, in Australia. There they have huge shearing sheds where the animals are first sweated and then carefully shorn. Whereas here the entire fleece is left in one piece, in Australia the belly is shorn separately and each fleece is carefully skirted, that is, the inferior parts such as the britch are torn off. Then each fleece is folded and tied up and the fleeces are put up in bales. Moreover, a bale usually contains fleeces of the same grade, so that practically nothing but sorting remains to be done by the purchaser. Here, on the other hand, fleeces are shorn in one piece and are folded up carelessly, without skirting. The tying up is frequently done in a slovenly manner, and a bag will very often contain all grades of wool from the finest to the coarsest. Of late years some attempt has been made to install the Australian system, but without much success.
Seasons
The shearing season in the northern hemisphere is in the spring, in countries below the equator, except Australia, it is, of course, in our fall. In Texas and California, as well as in some other localities, shearing is frequently done twice a year.
Marketing
Roughly speaking, there are seven ways in which the wool grower may dispose of his fleece wool:
Merchant Buyers
1. He may sell it to buyers representing merchants. The merchant, while he is a middle man and therefore incurs the usual anathema, performs a variety of very essential services. At the time of the clip he sends his buyers to the wool producing centers and buys the clip for cash, then he ships it to his warehouse, grades it, and sells to the mills on credit. Obviously he finances a very important part of the production, and is furthermore essential, because he knows the demand, which the wool-grower does not, and the supply—of which the mill is usually ignorant.
Mill Buyers
2. The wool grower may also sell to buyers representing mills. He likes to do this because he eliminates the merchant’s profit, but, as a matter of fact, there are only very few mills large enough to stand the buying expense, and even fewer that can afford to buy their whole season’s supply of raw material at one time and for cash. Also, mills can usually employ only certain grades of wool, and cannot therefore as a rule buy a whole clip.
Consignment
3. If the grower thinks that he is not receiving fair offers from the visiting buyers, he will frequently consign his wool to a merchant to be sold on commission for his account. In this case he may or may not get a better price, but it costs him his carrying charges plus commission. There are some wool houses that make it a specialty to execute commission sales of this nature.
Local Mills
4. Some wool is sold direct to nearby mills. This is done particularly in Ohio, where many of the smaller mills obtain their entire requirements in this manner.
Local Dealers
5. Wool growers sometimes sell to local dealers. This is particularly prevalent in regions where the individual grower’s production is small. In most eastern states there are a great number of small farmers who grow a certain amount of wool. The local dealers are in many cases also the general store-keepers, and, since they are the farmer’s creditor on other merchandise, and since the average farmer knows very little about the grades of wool, these individuals very frequently turn a handsome profit when they in turn sell to the visiting buyers.
Coop. Sales
6. Some wool is sold through farmers’ co-operative sales agencies, but these organizations have in the past been so poorly administered, that, as a general rule they have not been successful. The movement is, however, gaining ground and has shown great progress during recent years.
Auctions
7. Finally, there remains the method whereby almost all the British and colonial wools are sold, namely, by auction. Auction sales have been established for almost a century in London, Liverpool, Antwerp, Bremen, Hamburg, Marseilles, and recently in Australia. This method of disposing of their raw product does not, however, appeal to the American growers, because of the inherent American trading instinct. It is also not very feasible in this country, because the wool is not graded in the shearing sheds and because sheep-raising in not standardized.
Markets
The chief markets for wool in this country are Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, New York and St. Louis.