COMPARATIVE GRADES
| U. S. Domestic | U. S. Territory | Pulled | U. S. Counts Spun | Foreign Counts. |
| Full blood (XX) | Fine | AA | 60s | 66-74s |
| ¾ ” (X) | ¾ | 50s | 60-66s | |
| ½ ” | ½ | A | 40s | 54-60s |
| ⅜ ” | ⅜ | B | 36s | 48-54s |
| ¼ ” | ¼ | B | 32s | 44-48s |
| Low ¼ | Low ¼ | C | 20s | 40-44s |
| Common | Common | C | 16s | 36-40s |
| Braid | Braid | C | 12s | 32-36s |
Grading
Skirting
Sorting
When a bag of domestic wool is opened the fleeces are taken out one by one and put into baskets according to the grades in the first column. The grader simply decides what the majority of the fleece is and puts it into that class. When he has filled a basket with, let us say, half-blood fleeces, this basket is given to a sorter. He takes each fleece, shakes it out, and, first of all, skirts it. Then he separates it into the various sorts it contains. Fleeces graded as half-blood will probably sort into mostly half, some fine (full-blood), and a considerable quantity of three-eighths blood. The best wool comes off the shoulders, then the sides, then the back, then the thighs, and finally the britch and belly. Usually a fleece will not contain more than three sorts.
If this were a bag of Australian, South American, or Cape wool, the fleeces would in all probability have been bagged according to grades, so that only the sorting operation would have to be performed by the merchant or the mill.
When the wool has been sorted it is put into bins, and may now be said to be ready for the first of the manufacturing processes for which it is destined. Sorting is sometimes done by the merchants, but more frequently by the manufacturers.
Off-sorts
Kempy or cotted pieces, tags, stained or painty wool, etc., are called off-sorts, and these are put through a number of processes for the purpose of reclaiming as much of the wool as possible.
Scouring Machine