CLEAN W00L.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 16, Issue 830, 1 October 1870, Page 3

CLEAN WOOL.

A correspondent writes to the Queenslander on wool cleaning :—I now beg to offer a few .remarks on the subject of getting the wool itself clean without the aid of chemicals or the )iot soajf, by adopting a medium between the pold and jbot water systems.

Any one conversant with wash pool work must have observed the facility with which sheep wash after a thunderstorm, especially if the storm takes place towards evening; next morning the sheep wash with little or no trouble. The reason, I consider of this, is threefold : First, the water being soft; second, the wool haying been moistened for such a length of time; and, thirdly, owing to the tepid state of the rain during the storm. I propose to imitate this arrangement to a certain extent, by using warm water in the raining yard, and as time during this process is absolutely necessary, I should make the paining yard nearly large enough to hold a sufficient number of sheep for the one day's washing. The real otject of the receiving yard is merely to moisten the tips of the wool, a few minutes at once, and perhaps two or three times in the hour will be quite suffrcient time to rain upon the sheep, from this operation and the sweating of she sheep tjjem§elves, tlje dirt will be-

come more thoroughly softened than by the present system of keeping the sheep swimming fox five or ten minutes in the hot soak.

As this raining yard will be large, the tank can be placed over the centre, at a sufiicient height to the water through the pipes-; the tank must be of iron, with a close lid. It is heated by a steam pipe passing from the .engine boiler through the lid, and carried to within a few yards of the bottom ; a two inch pipe will be xmite sufficient to heat a 400 gallon tank in about ten or fifteen minutes. The end of the raining yard must be in close proximity to the spouts. My next remarks will refer to the present process of spout washing, and the alterations and improvements that might be made in that arrangement. Anyone taking a swim in the summer in any of our rivers or creeks must have remarked how) unpleasantly warm the water is to the depth of nine or ten inches below the surface ; and on diving down a few feet how cold and chilly it feels. I have observed that all the stations, either in northern or southern Queensland or New South Wales, instead of drawing the warm water from the surface into the pump wells, and throwing it into their spouting tanks, invairably have the cold water drawn from a depth of six or eight feet. The consequence is, if the weather is anything cold or cloudy, the water gets still colder, so that unless the sheep are passed sharply to the spout, and the dirt quickly washed out, the yolk sets before they are clean The consequence is a dark stain in the wool. To remedy this, if the tanks are the old eight foot vertical ones, with four side jets, I propose to carry a steam pipe of sufficient dimensions down the centre of each to within a few inches of the bottom. This will throw a jet of hot steam iii immediate proximity to the whole four spouts, and if it does not raise the water to a high temperature, will at least take the chill off it. Many people use the hot soak and chemicals without ever thinking whether the state of the water or the condition of the wool requires such, merely because it is the fashion and others do so.