OTAGO WOOL SALES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 March 1939, Page 3

OTAGO WOOL SALES

PROCEEDS SHOW DECREASE ON LAST YEAR. GREATER QUANTITY SOLD. The gross return to growers as the result of the second wool sale of the season in Otago on February 8 was £355,040 Is lOd, which, added to £306,534 derived from the opening sale of the year in December, brings the provincial wool cheque to date up to £661,574. This is slightly less than half the total receipts from the four sales held in this centre last year. Total sales at the December and February auctions this year have been slightly in excess of the quantities disposed of at the corresponding sales of the previous' season, which merely serves to emphasise that less favourable market conditions are ruling for the current selling period. Figures for the February’sale were: Bales sold, 27.081; passings, 274 bales; average price a pound, 9.7 d; average price a bale, £l3 2s 2d. The corresponding statistics for the December sale were: Bales offered, 24,297; passings, 10 per cent; average price a pound, 9.72 d; average price a bale, £l3 Is 3d. The figures for the whole of the 193738 season were: Bales sold, 92,501; average price a pound, 10.75 d; average price a bale, £l4 15s Id; total proceeds, £1,364,659.

Notwithstanding the fact that a slightly greater quantity of wool has been sold this year compared with the corresponding period of last season, receipts to date are approximately £lOB,000 lower than those recorded for the first two sales of the 1937-38 selling period. ■