BALING WOOL.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 449, 6 March 1909, Page 3

BALING WOOL.

LOCKS AND PIECES INSIDE. FORGETFULNESS OR WHAT? Probably if one were to suggest in the shearing-shed that to scoop up a double handful of locks, pieces, and dirt, from on and under the table, and roll it up inaide a good half-bred fleece, was cheating, ono would have things said to him for his trouble. Probably few farmers who roll up their wool .in this way have any idea or intention of defrauding the buyer. They do it simply' because it is the most convenient and natural thing to do. . But when tho buyer opens out the bale—probably after he has purchased ' it —and sees this little nest of rubbish roll out of every fleece, he makes no allowance for the farmer's idea of what was convenient; he forgives no extent of ignorance. He declares the New Zealand wool-grower to be a rogue to the coro.

. Many bales of wool reach , the market packed in the way described. One is reluctant to write it. In one of the Wellington wool stores yesterday a Dominion reporter was" shown a little heap of 601b. of rubbish which had been taken from two bales of wool. The fleeces themselves were of good quality, and the price bid for the line at the last auction sales was about 7j}d. per pound. But the rubbish—the locks and pieces and dirt, rolled up inside the fleeces—was worth only 3d.; per pound. The bnyer had bid 7Jd. per pound for 501b. of this stuff, worth only 3d. per pound, which involved a loss of 10s. per bale. The buyer in this _ particular case, however, being an inquisitive, energetic individual, went back to the store after.the sale, and opened out somo of .the bales he had bid for. When the rubbish began to tumble out, he refusH to take up the line, and the consignment had then to be,re-sold by the broker at the best terms obtainable. The loss, of course, fell back upon the grower, which was a good thing.. - ,

The greatest harm. is done when-the device—or shall it be called the "convenience"?—is not discovered till the wool is on the floors. of Bradford. Then the grower individually cannot be reached; but the New Zealand wool-growers as a class are all painted with the impression which such modes of packing create on the minds of the wool' importers, and lower prices have to bo offered in' future to coyer the risk of rubbish.

Do many buyers opeif out the bales. and examine them? asked the reporter. "Not so many of the English buyers, but most of the' American buyers, who repack before shipping." Then, apparently, it is a good thing in' same cases to- keep away from the American buyer. Who are the chief offenders in the matter of bad packing ? "The small growers. Such faulty packing would never occur on tho large stations, like Brancepeth, for example. Come and look at this wool —coarse, inferior fleeces baled-up inside a covering of good halfbreds. There are" two fleeces of inferior wool to every_ four fleeces of half bred wool, and the inferior is at the middle of the bale in every case;*' ■

Did the buyer refuse to take up -that lot ? "Yes. _ The good wool was worth BJd., and the inferior only 6d. One expects to find rubbish at the bottom of a box of strawberries, but not in a bale of halfbred merino wool." ....'• You think s it damages the sales? "It disgusts the buyers, arid may make many of them .refuse, to attend the Wellington And it'will lower the prices. It is a. Blatter.,that, the wool-growers ought to do everything in,their;;power to remedy without delay."