PERU AS A WOOL COUNTRY

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 270, 4 February 1928, Page 27

PERU AS A WOOL COUNTRY

A POSSIBLE RIVAL WHAT INVESTIGATION REVEALS A great future lies before Peru as a wool grower. For some time that staple has been the most important commodity in the trade of the Arequipa districts, where exports of the alpaca variety predominate. It is estimated that the number of sheep in Peru in 1925 totalled 12,600,000, virtually double that in 1920, and that the production of wool advanced to 15,432,0001 b, against only 9,000,0001 b. While Peru appears to have doubled its sheep population in a period of five years, it is significant that the weight of the fleece has remained about the same—namely, lilb, compared with But the deduction may be made, if the Peruvian return of 12,600,000 sheep for 1925 is correct, that Peru is much nearer becoming a great wool country than anyone suspected.

Professor A. F. Barker, professor of textile industries at the University of Leeds, who accepted an invitation in 1926 from President Leguia to visit Peru and to inspect and report upon Colonel Stordy’s experiments in growing Merino wool, in a report points out that if the results of the Chuquibambilla experiments should lead to an increase in the weight of the Peruvian fleece from 141 b to 51b, Peru, with its present flocks, could produce from 60,000,0001 b to 70,000,0001 b of wool per annum, and would then rank third among the South American wool producing countries. In this development a good start has been made, and it is quite conceivable that the wool clip of Peru within a decade may actually be quadrupled.

Professor Barker toured the sheepbreeding country of Southern Peru in his investigation of the prospective development over some 30,000,000 acres which might ultimately be expected io produce about 100,000,0001 b of wool yearly. He inspected flocks at the model farm, and other progressive sheep farms, visiting wool warehouses and wool-washing establishments, and afterwards going over a number of woolllen mills, thus learning something of what Southern Peru is doing so far as the manufacture of woollen goods is concerned. It is interesting to learn that no worsted goods are at present being manufactured.

Professor Barker says that what Australia has done by cross breeding and selection Peru will also be able to do by cross breeding and careful utilisation of ii:s pasture lands. It is, however, candidly admitted that the Peruvian fleece is extraordinarily light. This factor, therefore, must be carefully taken into account in all endeavours to improve and maintain the breed in both weight and quality.