SERIOUS VIEW

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 November 1943, Page 3

SERIOUS VIEW

OF OUTLOOK FOR WOOL TAKEN BY PROFESSOR CLUNIES ROSS. EXPANSION OF RESEARCH ADVOCATED. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) SYDNEY, November 18. Unless scientific measures to improve wool production in Australia were taken immediately, the entire industry, worth £75,000,000 a year to the Commonwealth, would be in a precarious position, said Professor Clunies Ross, dean of the faculty of veterinary science at Sydney University and exchairman of the International Wool Secretariat in London. To meet the threat of synthetic wool fibres, said Professor Ross, Australian sheep could be made to produce 50 per cent more wool than at present. “Australia, though more dependent than any other country on her livestock, has lagged far behind them in the application of scientific principles,” he said. “A programme of « research throughout the Commonwealth.should be undertaken immediately, and an institute of wool research set up. Talk of expense should be silenced by the realisation that a fall of Id per lb. in the price of wool costs Australia £54)00,000.” The cost of production could be lessened by more effective control of nutrition and scientific working knowledge of pasture management. Wool production could be increased by half if the sheep were properly nourished. Breeding methods would also have to be changed and progeny testing and other scientific research in breeding should start at once.. Wool could be presented in a multitude of new and attractive forms. As a matter of the greatest urgency, textile manufacturers should have vastly expanded their experimental work and should have pushed forward in designing and dyeing processes and greater exploitation of the hygienic and heatlhful properties of wool. The expenditure of even a proportion of the money and energy being spent in perfecting synthetic fibres would put the wool industry out of danger.