SEEDY WOOL

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 74, 20 December 1917, Page 10

SEEDY WOOL

(To tho Editor.)

Sir ( —Your Hawke's Bay correspondent, in tlie course of his letter, states: "It is a recognised tiling that in most cases the piri piri disappears from the .wool during the voyage to London," etc.. etc. As the Imperial Supplies Department have not dwelt upon this aspect, I have much pleasure m placing my experience on record—spread over many years in London—as I know, there is quite an erroneous idea prevalent 111 New Zealand/ and I should like to help to remove same from the minds of wool-growers. From time to time I took samples of heavily-seeded wool—fleece, lambs, and pieces—from New Zealand wools at the wool floors of the Port of London authority. and without exception 1 found that after keeping these samples in an ordinary office desk drawer—from which they were taken at various times to show to Dominion visitors—for two, three, and even four years, ihe seed was still very much in evidence at the end of these periods, the only "disappearance" being such seed as ;.nay have been shaken off in the handling froni time to time. I submit that instead of the supposed chemical properties in the wool reducing the seed to powder, that the natural moisture and grease rather tend to preserve the seed.—l am, J. P. MORCOM, . Valuer. Wellington, December 19.

A point for dairy farmers to match, especially at the present, is that they securo sufficient milk cans-to tide over the steel shortage.. A. J, Parton, Carterton, advises us that he has a small, supply of steel, and can -accept orders for a limited number of cans'. Promptness in ordering is advised.—Advt.