MARKETING OF WOOL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 October 1941, Page 6

MARKETING OF WOOL

VALUE OF CLASSING. A CONVINCING ARGUMENT. Arguments to prove that wool-class-ing pays are advanced by the Directorgeneral of Agriculture in the Journal of Agriculture. He state that one of the first points to be taken into account is the question of the yield of classed and unclassed wool —that is the amount of clean, scoured wool left after all impurities have been removed. A difference of 5 per cent or 6 per cent in yield would be quite imperceptible to the average farmer, yet it would make a difference of nearly 2d per lb to the price he received for it. Apart from yield there are many other points which would affect the value of the two clips which might eaisly be overlooked by the layman; for example, differences in length, count, soundess, colour, and handle. Moreover, in pre-war times direct comparisons were valid only when the two clips were sold at the same sale—preferably about the same time—because of the notorious fluctuations of the market.

Today all these conditions, except the last, still hold good, and another, the most convincing argument of all in favour of classing, has always been valid —today more so than ever. It is a fact that wool dealers can make a living by buying poorly, classed or unclassed clips, and after carefully reclassing them on their own premises are able to dispose of them at a profit. Before the war, dealers operated both at auction sales and in the country, buying direct from the farmer. Today there are no longer wool auction sales, as all wool is bought on behalf of the Government in a fixed scale of values, but licensed wool dealers still can, and do, buy direct from the farmer. It is stated that some of them who specialise in the business are actually able to offer the farmer a better price than he would receive by offering his wool for appraisal in the ordinary way. . This seeming anomaly is explained by the old argument that classing pays. Many farmers are still content to send in their clips for sale without adequate preparation—sometimes without even attempting to remove bellies and skirtings. A clip of this sort meets its just deserts, and is penalised by the appraisers when it is valued. On the other hand, the wool dealer, operating in a given district and fully familiar with local conditions and types of wool, can afford to offer the farmer a little more than ruling commandeer prices. He can do this because on proper classing the particular clip in question will yield several distinct lines of wool, and when these in their properlyprepared state are offered for sale they will fetch enough to pay all expenses and also yield a profit. The buyer’s profit is the farmer’s loss. The moral from the farmer’s point of view is to give more time and attention to preparing his clip for market. With a medium-sized clip, or bigger, he can do it himself, or employ a classer, or get his broker to do it. The small clip, however, is usually the one most affected by these conditions, and does not generally allow of much classing. However, the least the farmer can do is to remove the bellies, and preferably skirt as well. He will usually be able to make one or two main lines of wool, but all'small quantities should be sent in to a broker (preferable one who specialises in binning) for handling. These firms have adequate facilities for the propel' handling of wool,-and, no matter how small the quantity, it will be grouped with fleeces of the same type until a large even line is assembled, which will thus fetch the farmer the full market value of his wool, less the small charge for binning.