Preparing Wool For Market

There is small room for doubting tliat it is to the ultiraate interest of sheep-breeders to so cultívate their flocks as to induce the growth of the greatest possible weight of cleansed wool for their expenditure of labor and food. With each recurring season comes the usual avalanche of adviee from middlemen and manufacturers, topped off with an emblazonment of the great advantage to the grower in placing his wools upon the market in the lightest possible condition. Certainly, no teaching of the Journal has been at vanance with this proposition. There is, however, one view of the situation which the complaining partiee seem to have overlooked, i. e., that the would-be teachers are, by their actions, continually discouraging any general adoption of their precepts. Wool-growers will average with the best half of humanity; but as the majority of men will be found acting in the line of their present advantage, those who repeat to the wool-grower the oft-reiterated maxims favoring clean washing, early shearing, neat rolling and a minimum of string, to-day,and to-morrow offer them no more, or very little more than the price paid for wool not so systematically manipulated, must attribute the failure of their teaching to that excusable selfishness of man which prompts him to realize for his capital and labor the maximum results consistent with law and equity. The incentive to wool-growing is moneymaking ; and so long as the flock-holder can get more money for the fleece of a sheep when unwashed, or halfwashed, or one that, after having been properly washed was allowod to remain on the sheep until the normal amount of grease had been restored, just so long will fleeces be found as heavy as legitímate means can make tliem. The manfacturer or dealer who expects an opposite result, must base such expectations upon elementa of character seldom found outside the list of those who are prompted solely by philanthropy. The growing and selling of heavy fleeces - ñeeces carrying alargeamount of grease and gum - is altogether legitímate, so long as the seller practices no deception by concealing the true condition of his product. The 'man who would buy an invoice of wool without examining its condition and quality, or having such examination made by soiuk competent party, would fiad in hod-carrying a more approprtate iield for tlie display of his peculiar qualiflcations than a wool lof t can ever afford. As markets usually run, the grower gets more money per head of sheep for heavy wool than for the same fleeces in the lightest possible condition; and so long as such a premium on heavy lleeces is held out to their pockets, all appeals to the ears of men will be but as the noise of "sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal." Wool will, as a rule, be made as light as possible, and its sübsequent manipulation attended to witli the most rigid oversight, whenever the markets show a premium upon such observances ; but until that time very little change from the present practices need be luoked for.