WOOL RESEARCH

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 50, 27 January 1938, Page 5

WOOL RESEARCH

“MUST BE PRACTICAL.” CRITICISM OF WORK IN ENGLAND. BRADFORD, Jan. 1. The International Secretariat in London, representing woolgrowers of Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, has at its disposal huge funds (contributed by those growers in the form of a levy on each bale of wool produced) for research into wool and tor the advertising and popularising of wool as a textile fibre. The secretariat has expressed itis desire to work in conjunction with the Wool Industries Research Association in Leeds.

This research association is supported by voluntary contributions from the wool textile industry of Great Britain, but it is still far from having the entire support of the trade. There is a widespread feeling that not only is there a danger of its staff being too academical and too little in touch with mill practice, but that any discovery it makes, even if of advantage to the trade, will be announced to scores of its members simultaneously. Also J>ecause too many may decide to work it, there will be no profit in it for any individual firm.

One example, of this has been the recent discoveries of methods to prevent the shrinking of wool, tops, yarn, and garments. Two methods devised by private firms are being operated commercially. Tlie one devised by the Industries Research Association seems to be far less- in the public eye. Woolgrowers will wonder if their money is being well spent, unless their Secretariat in London supervises closely tlie subjects of research. For example, the Research Association in Leeds recently thought fit to attend the instrumental method of measuring fineness in wool tops, which has been adopted as a standard by the International Wool Textile Organisation. The argument runs that “accurate- and reproducible measurements of fibre characteristics, of which diameter and length are tlie most important, are a fundamental-necessity, for any progress to be in the understanding of the manufacturing performance of wool. . . . The sheep farmer will wish to have reliable numerical data on which to base liis breeding policy.” CLIMATE AND ECONOMICS. Probably 99 growers out of a 100 will here indulge in a laugh, either hearty because ot the mistaken estimate of the value they set on microscopic research, or sardonic when they think their levy may be dissipated in such a manner. It would be interesting to know if any woolgrower between now and 1958 (20 years should be enough even for wool research experiments to breed results) alters his type of sheep to accord with recommendation of the Wool Industries Research Association. If any grower should do so, it is to he hoped that he will write to the newspapers, or to the Leeds researchers to helu them to justify the work they are doing and recommendations they are making... Most growers are well aware that, if they are working in a Merino area, a perfectly sound staple exactly three inches Jong and exactly 70’s quality, without a burr or seed, with no weakness of growth, and a fleece with no variation in quality, length, or crimp from neck to crutchings, without change in any particular from one year to another, would be an improvement ton what they are producing to-day. If, however, any scientist were to recommend them to produce such a .fleece they would ask him first to standardise climate, rainfall, vegetation, and re-arrange the whole makeup of the sheei> as aq animal. It is all very well for scientists to make research into what can be done with wool. For them to recommend a change to sheep growing 50 per cent more fibres to the square inch of skin or w T ool three-quarters of an inch longer than what it is producing already, is perfectly futile until those scientists can control the whole framework of natural conditions within which the grower and his flocks have to exist. The recommendations of the scientists are of little weight against the geographical factors.

Economics constitute another set of equally important conditions. There is certainly a danger that the research workers into the possibilities' of wool are overlooking the fact that wool is only one of the sheep’s many products. Their recommendations read sometimes as if tlie grower had nothing else to think about but wool. Even in Australia and South Africa, which are mainly Merino countries, this is scarcely correct; while in New Zealand and South America it is definitely out of touch with reality. If the grower can get his best profit bv producing 46’s quality wool and quick fattening lambs, he is not likely to change over to 40’s deep wool or 58-60’s lialf-brcd types, although he knows quite well that., the world production of both deep preparing wools and fine 58-60’s lialfbreds is shrinking, and that fabrics can be made with both types that are quite impossible from 46’s carding. COSTS OF ADOPTION. There is another point that the research scientist might easily overlook. That is the cost of following out the various recommendations. Tile money contributed for research by growers overseas and by millmen in Yorkshire may result in certain discoveries which would be to the advantage of the trade as a whole, but, having paid for the making of these discoveries, the trade is further called upon to pay for their commercialisation.

■Those growers who wish to make the effort to translate into practice the discoveries of the laboratories have a right to expect the transference of the new method from the experimental station to the commercial station should be available with most of the experimental expenses and mistakes already eliminated. The grower is paying for the work of that kind to be done, and should see that in return for his expenditure lie is not handed merely a pamphlet full of laboratory recommendations, which he can only put into work at his own further expense. There is a tendency amongst the research workers in Leeds to blame the industry here for being unwilling to experiment on a necessarily large scale. Surely the answer is that the Research Association is being subsidised as much to do this as to make the actual discoveries. The allegation that mills are not experimenting^ sufficiently with the discoveries already made seems to confirm what many have feared—that the Research Association is working too far out of touch with the mill outlook.