WOOL PREPARATION

Waikato Times, Volume 125, Issue 20956, 8 November 1939, Page 9

WOOL PREPARATION

WORK ON THE FARMS SKIRTING OF CLIPS INQUIRIES FROM GROWERS Inquiries are still being received by wool brokers from growers as to what action they should take in regard to their wool. It is apparent that recent announcements by the Government have failed to make the position sufficiently clear to growers. The recent statement by the Minister of Marketing, the Hon. W. Nash, that the basic price of 12|d per lb. is net to the grower at the wool store and that brokers’ commissions, handling charges in store and costs of appraisement will be met by the British Government, have been misinterpreted by numbers of growers, who have overlooked the very definite instruction given by the Minister at an earlier stage of the negotiations thht all clips should be skirted in the wool shed before despatch to brokers’ stores. Need For Attention The position is that in those instances in which a grower sends a properly-skirted and classed clip to a broker’s store for appraisement he will receive a rate based on the Dominion average of 12£d per lb. in accordance with the grading schedules which will be prepared under the direction of the Minister of Marketing. Until these schedules are completed it is impossible to estimate with any degree of accuracy the probable return for any particular grade of wool, but it seems likely that in general there will be a fairly constant ratio between the figures realised last season and this season’s expected return. On the other hand, the grower who has shorn early and has not skirted his wool, or the grower who, although shearing later, fails to heed the instructions of the Minister of Marketing with regard to skirting and forwards an unskirted and perhaps carelessly got up clip to the broker’s store for appraisement, will find himself in a far less favourable position than a more careful neighbour, as the appraisers are empowered to refuse to value a clip not properly skirted and prepared , for sale. In such a case the clip would have to be opened and skirted in the broker’s store at the grower’s expense. Skirting In Sheds All growers will realise the only logical place tG skirt a fleece is in the wool shed before it is rolled and baled. There skirting becomes a small-part of the system of shearing and handling the clip, but if it is done in the broker’s store it becomes a much more lengthy operation. The bale has to be opened, the fleece taken out and carefully unrolled, then skirted, re-rolled and re-baled, a slow and tedious task, which would prove very much more expensive to a grower than the completion of the task in the correct place—the grower’s own shed. No doubt detailed instructions will be issued to growers by the Minister through the woolbrokers, but in the meantime the Auckland Woolbrokers’ Association urges that growers should, in their own interests, follow carefully any announcements made through the press from time to time. They should in particular remember that care in the skirting and general get-up of their clips will have as great, or possibly greater, influence on their returns under a system of appraisement as under auction conditions. Growers are again reminded by the association that their own brands should appear on the cap and one side only of the bale. The other end •and three sides must be reserved for Government marks.