Aldred Farrer Barker

“ The mechanical arrangements of the machines are such as to ensure the passage of the wool without undue lifting and “stringing,” to obviate the mixing of wool grease, sand, dirt, &c., once taken out of the wool with that wool again, to give time for the thorough action of the scouring agents, so that neither too strong a solution nor too great a heat be employed, and to allow of the ready cleansing of the machines so that there is no unnecessary waste of time. In England the recognized type of merino wool-washing machine is the fork-frame bowl. Three to five of these machines are employed. ”

“ Sorting is very far removed from being a mere mechanical process of selecting and separating the wool from certain parts of the fleece, because in each individual fleece qualities and proportions differ, and it is only by long experience that a stapler is enabled, almost as it were by instinct, rightly to divide up his lots, so as to produce even qualities of raw material. ”

“ The colour of the greater proportion of alpaca imported into the United Kingdom is black and brown, but there is also a fair proportion of white, grey and fawn. It is customary to mix these colours together, thus producing a curious ginger-coloured yarn, which upon being dyed black in the piece takes a fuller and deeper shade than can be obtained by piece-dyeing a solid-coloured wool. In physical structure alpaca is somewhat akin to hair, being very glossy, but its softness and fineness enable the spinner to produce satisfactory yarns with comparative ease. ”

“ Where running streams exist, the sheep are penned by the side of the water, and taken one by one and held in the stream while they are washed, one man holding and the other washing. The operation is objectionable in many ways, as it pollutes the stream, and it dissipates no mean amount of potash salts, valuable for manure or for other chemical purposes. Sheep washing appliances are now largely employed, the arrangement consisting of a pen into which the sheep are driven and subjected to a strong spray of water either hot or cold, which soaks the fleece and softens the dirt. ”

“ The passage of the wool forward through the machine depends upon its being carried past each worker in turn. Thus from beginning to end of a machine the workers are set closer and closer to the swift, so that the last worker only allows completely carded wool to pass it. Immediately on passing the last worker F′ the wool is brushed up on the surface of the swift by the “fancy” G—as a rule the only cylinder whose teeth actually work into the teeth of the swift and the only cylinder with a greater surface speed than the swift. ”

“ The last type, the Noble, is the most popular of all and, by a change of large and small circles, may be adapted to the combing of long, medium or short wools. As the great bulk of cross-bred and a considerable proportion of botany wool is combed upon the Noble comb a brief description is here called for. The object of all wool combing is to straighten the long fibres and to comb out from the slivers treated all the fibres under a certain length, leaving the long fibres or “top” to form the sliver which is eventually spun into the worsted yarn. ”

“ Many firms now steep the wool previous to the true scouring operation, the object being to scour the wool with its own potash salts, to obtain wash-waters so fully charged with the potash salts that these salts, &c., may be readily extracted and put to some good use, and lastly to save the artificial scouring agent employed in the true scouring operation. The scouring of wool has passed through many vicissitudes during the past fifty years, but to-day the principle upon which all scouring machines are based is that wool naturally opens out in water. ”

“ In a general way it may be said that woollen yarns are those made from short wools possessed of high felting qualities, which are prepared by the process of carding; whereby the fibres are as far as possible crossed and interlaced with each other, and that the carded-slivers, though perhaps hard spun on the mule frame, form a light fluffy yarn, which suits the conditions when woven into cloth for being brought into the semi-felted condition by milling which is the distinguishing characteristic of woollen cloth. ”

“ As the mule is an intermittent worker it is natural to contrast it with the cap frame, which runs continuously. What the real advantage is it is difficult to say, but the mule spun worsted yarn trade is becoming yearly of more importance, and it is pleasing to note that English spinners are at last doing a fair share of this business. ”

“ With reference to wools grown in the United Kingdom the truth seems to be that a fine short wool has never been produced. British wools. English wool is known the world over as being of a long and lustrous type, which was doubtless that so much in demand in the middle ages. That it was as long and lustrous as the typical Leicester or Lincoln of to-day is doubtful, as the new Leicester breed of sheep was only fully developed by Mr Bakewell after the year 1747, and the latter day Lincoln was even a later development of a similar character. ”

“ The surface of a fleece has usually a thick coating of dirt, and in the case of merino breeds the fleece surface is firmly caked together into solid masses, from the adhesion of dirt to the wool constantly moist with the exudation from the skin of the greasy yolk or “suint,” so that in an unwashed very greasy fleece 30% of weight may represent dirt, and about 40% the greasy suint which lubricates the wool, while the pure wool is not more than one-third part of the whole. ”

“ Norwich guards a remnant of its once flourishing worsted industry and Leicester has developed a remarkable hosiery trade. Again, firms whose existence is due to individual enterprise are still studded up and down the country, and manage to compete fairly well with the main manufacturing districts. Since about 1856, however, there can be no doubt that the English wool trade has been centring more and more round Bradford, while the remanufactured materials and the blanket trade is centred round Batley and Dewsbury. ”

“ A rough Harris tweed, for example, contrasts strangely with a smooth fine wool Italian. Of course these differences are not created in any one process or merely by the selection of the raw material or yarn. Every process of manufacture must be directed to attain the desired end, and it is well to realize that huge businesses have been built up upon what, by the outsider, would only be regarded as unimportant details.
The principal styles of woollen cloth are tweeds, meltons, Venetians, beavers, doeskins, buckskins, cassimeres and diagonals. ”

“ To-day there are three distinct methods of producing worsted yarn. Firstly, there is the preparing and spinning of the true worsted thread, this being made from long English and colonial wool. In this class should also be included mohair and alpaca. Secondly, there is the preparing and spinning of what are known as cross-bred and botany yarns, these being made from cross-bred and botany wools. Thirdly, there is the preparing and spinning of short botany wools on the French system. ”

“ The commonest way, however, of drying is to spread the wool as uniformly as possible over a framework of wire netting, under or over which is a range of steam-heated pipes. A fan blast blows air over these hot pipes, and the heated air passes up and is forced upwards through the layer of wool which rests on the netting or downwards, as the case may be. In this case, unless the wool is spread with great evenness, it gets unequally dried, and at points where the hot air escapes freely it may be much over-dried. ”

“ Flocks of sheep were first introduced into the Falkland Islands in 1867. The pasturage here being limited, the flocks have probably attained their limit, but from the Falkland Islands flocks have been passed on to Punta Arenas, where there is practically unlimited pasturage. The chief centres from which wool from S. America comes to Europe are Buenos Aires, which exports chiefly long and cross-bred wools, Montevideo, which exports chiefly merino wools, and the Falkland Islands and Punta Arenas, which export mostly wools of the finer type. The industry is largely in the hands of Englishmen. ”

“ A skilful shearer will clip the fleece from a sheep in one unbroken continuous sheet, retaining the form and relative positions of the Sheep shearing. mass almost as if the creature had been skinned. In this unbroken condition each fleece is rolled up by itself and tied with its own wool, which greatly facilitates the sorting or stapling which all wool undergoes for the separation of the several qualities which make up the fleece. Mechanical shears have almost revolutionized the shearing industry, a good shearer shearing from 100 to 200 sheep per day. ”

“ Some carders use a breast or small swift in place of those opening rollers—mostly on account of economy. The swift is usually surmounted with four workers and strippers and is very similar to the woollen carder, save that the workers and doffer are larger, thereby effecting more of a combing action and working economically by reason of the greater wearing surface brought into play. As botany wool is usually brought directly from the wash bowl to the feed sheet of the card, it is usual to clothe the first cylinders with galvanized wire clothing. ”

“ The washing which a fleece may have received on the live sheep is not sufficient for the ordinary purposes of the manufacturer. Scouring. On the careful and complete manner in which scouring is effected much depends. The qualities of the fibre may be seriously injured by injudicious treatment, while, if the wool is imperfectly cleansed, it will dye unevenly, and the manufacturing operations will be more or less unsatisfactory. ”

“ Generally speaking, the best portion of a fleece is from the shoulders and side of the animal. The quality decreases towards the tail end of the sheep, the “britch” being frequently long, strong and irregular. The belly wool is short, worn and dirty, as is also the front of the throat, while on tie head and shins the product is short, stiff and straight, more like hair than wool and is liable to contain grey hairs. ”

“ In the manufacture of thread-structure felts, wools possessing the quality of felting in a high degree are naturally selected, carefully scoured so that the felting quality is not seriously damaged, spun into woollen yarn possessing the necessary fibre arrangement and twist, woven into cloth of such a character that subsequently satisfactory shrinking or felting may be effected, and finally scoured, milled in the stocks of machine of both, dyed and finished on the lines of an ordinary woven fabric. ”

“ Where the cotton warp and mohair or alpaca weft plain-cloth came from is not known, but it was this simple yet ingenious structure which enabled Titus Salt (q.v.) , then a young Bradford manufacturer, to utilize alpaca successfully. Bradford is still the great spinning and manufacturing centre for alpacas, large quantities of yarns and cloths being exported annually to the continent and to the United States, although the quantities naturally vary in accordance with the fashions in vogue, the typical “alpaca-fabric” being a very characteristic “dress-fabric.” ”

“ The smaller cylinders, called workers, are also provided with strong spikes; they are mounted over the drum and revolve more slowly in a direction contrary to the drum, the spikes of which just clear those of the workers. The wool is fed into the drum, which carries it round with great velocity; but, as it passes on, the locks are caught by the spikes of the workers, and in the contest for possessing the wool the matted locks are torn asunder till the whole wool is delivered in a light, free and disentangled condition. It is a debatable point as to whether willowing should precede scouring. ”

“ The prevailing colour of sheep's wool is white, but there are races with black, brown, fawn, yellow and grey shades of wool. Physical characteristics of wool. For manufacturing purposes generally white wool is, of course, most valuable, but for the homespuns, which in earlier times absorbed the bulk of wool, natural colours were in many cases used with good effect. In domestic spinning, knitting, and weaving, natural colours are still largely taken advantage of, as in the cases of rough yarns, Shetland knitted shawls, Highland tweeds, &c. ”

“ The natural impurity or wool-yolk is truly a skin product and is a protector of the wool-fibre rather than part of the true fibre substance. The wool-fat also may be regarded as independent of the true fibrous substance, but it is well to recognize that if the wool-fibre be entirely freed from the wool-fat it loses its plastic and elastic nature and is considerably damaged. ”