conditions. In Part II the Commission has taken up a detailed consideration of wool growing in the United States. There is a discussion of the wool-growing industry and its problems in both the farm states of the East and the range states of the far West. Particularly, questions such as the relation of our public-land policy to the sheep industry, the organization and financing of wool growing, the cost of production of wool and mutton in the range states, and the problems of the marketing of both wool and sheep, have been discussed at length. Part III is a discussion of wool growing in the important competing areas outside the United States. These include Australia, New Zealand, British South Africa, and Argentina. These chapters provide data for comparison with the wool-growing industry in the United States. In Part IV the Commission surveys the history of the wool tariff in the United States and presents certain suggestions and recommendations upon classification of wools and the basis upon which an import duty should be levied, in case Congress decides to impose a duty upon raw wools. CHAPTER 2. SURVEY OF THE WORLD PRODUCTION AND PRODUCTION OF WOOL SUITABLE FOR MAKING CLOTHING. Most of the leading sources of the present supply of wool are in the Southern Hemisphere. The character of the wool clips of the various regions may be described briefly as follows: Australia is the great source of supply of Merino wool. Of late years an increasing amount of crossbred wool has been grown there, but the country is chiefly famous for its clips of rather fine Merino of moderate shrinkage. New Zealand, on the other hand, grows crossbred wool almost exclusively. South Africa furnishes Merino wool, most of which does not seriously challenge the superiority of Australian fine Merino. Argentina is predominantly a crossbred wool country, and Uruguay is becoming so, although in the past it has produced considerable Merino wool. In Great Britain, where mutton is much more important to the flockmasters than wool, the "luster" and "down" wools are the kinds produced. Continental Europe raises more crossbred and "down" wool than Merino, and the same is true of Canada. In the United States various kinds of wool are raised under the different conditions existing in the different parts of the country. In the far West the proportion of Merino blood is usually large, while in the "farm States," except in the upper Ohio Valley, the common types are crosses of various English breeds, having little or no Merino blood. The low-grade wools shorn from "native" or "unimproved" sheep, and used chiefly for carpets, and to some extent for mixing with the better wools in making blankets and rough cloth, come principally from China, India, Russia, the Near East, and the Balkans, though additional supplies come from almost every part of the world. This gives, in a general way, a view of the kinds of wool raised in the countries which furnish by far the greater part of the world's supply. Before analyzing more carefully the world's wool output, the following figures, which illustrate the important position of the British Empire in the industry, are given: 1 1 Report of the Departmental Committee appointed by the Board of Trade to consider the position of the Textile Trades after the war. British Blue Book, 1918, Cd. 9070, p. 27. The figures of the Committee have been slightly amended here. a English long and down wools. b Crossbred and English wools. TABLE II.-World's Production of Wool, 1919.a 609,000 151,550 153, 450 304,000 304,000 174,000 130,000 404,000 73,000 331,000 338,000 338,000 1,046,000 247,000 461,000 338,000 2,799,000 1,069, 050 1,027, 950 702,000 @ This table is constructed mainly on the basis of wool figures from the Bulletin of the National Association of Wool Manufacturers for January, 1920, p. 114. The figures for Australasia are from Dalgety's Annual Wool Review, 1918-19, pp. 58-60; for Canada, from the report of Vice Consul Robertson, Ottawa, made for the United States Tariff Commission, transmitted through the State Department. Where better information is not available, the_proportions of the various kinds of wool are accepted as given in the British Blue Book, Cd. 9070, op. cit. The output is given in round numbers, as the object is to present the general situation. About one-half of Canada's output is English combing wool. • English wools-"long" and "down." Australia. Many different types of wool are grown in Australia. The continent is large and has wide climatic variations. The variety of Australian wool which has been preferred in the United States is the fine quality Victorian, western district wool. This is exceptionally fine, light shrinking, and of long staple. "Port Phillip " and "Geelong" wools, popular in the United States, are grown in Victoria. The wool from the Tasmanian Merino is much like the wool from the western district of Victoria, but is of heavier shrinkage. Another section of Australia which is famous for fine wool is the Mudgee district of New South Wales. In South Australia, where pasturage is more sparse, the wool is of a "bolder" type-that is, it is longer and coarser. On the hot and dry plains of the "out-back" country, coarser wool is grown, because the fine Merino, containing much grease, retains more dirt than the coarse wool. Queensland, which is not thickly settled as yet, is predominantly a Merino section. The western part of that State is especially well suited to growing Merino wool on account of the dry climate. Defect in these wools is frequently caused by scarcity of vegetation, which robs them of soundness of fiber. The clips coming from the central and northern parts are usually dry and of "light condition." The more moist areas, especially near the coast, Darling Downs in Southern Queensland and Peak Downs in Central Queensland, are adapted to lamb raising and grow more of the crossbred wool. The increase of mixed farming is usually accompanied by a greater output of crossbred wool. The Merino wool of West Australia is usually of the "bold" or "strong" type.3 The English breeds which are most popular in Australia are the Lincoln, Leicester, Border Leicester, Romney Marsh, Shropshire, Southdown, Hampshire, Suffolk, and Dorset Horn.* New Zealand. The climate of New Zealand is much like that of England and is particularly well adapted to the raising of crossbred sheep. Many grades and qualities of wool, suitable for almost all classes of worsted yarn, come from that country. The new type of sheep, the Corriedale, which is the result of crossing Lincolns and Merinos, is a product of New Zealand. These sheep have a mutton frame covered with a long staple fleece which resembles the "comeback" (3/4 blood Merino) type. The small amount of Merino wool grown in New Zealand resembles the Victorian wool. 2 Hawkesworth, Alfred: Australasian Sheep and Wool, Sydney, 1911, p. 245. Queensland Sheep and Wool Industry, published by Government of Queensland, 1918, pp. 45, 78. Smith, H. B.: The Sheep and Wool Industry of Australasia, Chap. 2. 5 Hawkesworth: op. cit., p. 246. The following table shows the relative position of the Australian States and New Zealand in wool production: TABLE III.-Production of Wool in Australasia, 1918–19.a State. Production. Net weight. New South Wales. Tasmania.. Commonwealth. New Zealand.... Australasia... Argentina. a From Dalgety's Annual Wool Review (Australia), 1918-19, p. 60. 880,441,399 About 75 per cent of the wool grown in the Argentine Republic comes from crossbred sheep. Lincoln, Leicester, and Romney Marsh are the favorite sheep for crossing with Merino in that country. The crossbred Argentine wool grades principally medium and coarse, corresponding rather closely with "domestic quarter blood" and “domestic common of the United States. The fine crossbred of Argentina corresponds with domestic three-eighths blood. About 20 per cent of the Argentine clip is Merino, while the remaining 5 per cent is from blackfaced sheep and from the native or "criolla" sheep. The last named class of wool comes largely from the Provinces of Mendoza and Cordoba. The northern part of the Province of Buenos Aires was formerly a source of supply of Merino wool from Rambouillet sheep, but as agriculture has increased the number of sheep has been reduced. This Province still has by far the largest number of any section of Argentina, and crossbreds make up the greater proportion. The southern part of Argentina, however, is the place where the number of sheep is expected to increase. The following table gives the number of sheep and the wool output in the principal wool-growing Provinces of Argentina in 1914. The number of sheep has been placed as high as 81,000,000 in some estimates, but judged by the quantity of wool exported, this is generally considered much too great. This is not always the result of an increase in agriculture as will be noted from other parts of the report, but it has been the case in Argentina. |