The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1881-05-20
Regarding Wool.

I
Regarding Wool.
EDIToRs News: The season has now
arrived when wool growers are figuring
about current prices for wool, and a
word on this subject may not be amiss.
The price of wool suffered great fall
in March. This was due partly TO a very
large amount of foreign and domestic
wool thrown on the market by holders
who had purchased at the extreme price
| a year ago, and were weary of holding
or compelled to sell; and partly to the
sluggishness of the market for wooden
fabrics, the protracied winter and the
| floods and storms which rendered
| transportation in the northwest i'm
practicable, having postponed the usual
late winter and early spring distribution
of manufactured wooden goods. Prices
are now steady at the reduction, and the
question is, will they advance in the
face of new clip about TO come on the
market? At this date last year twenty
millions of pounds of foreign wool had
arrived or been shipped to the United
States on purchases made subsequent to
January 1850 and this in addition 10
the importation in the autumn of 1879.
This year no purchases of any account
have been made, nor can there be any at
present prices of wool in the foreign
market The price of wool here must be
parties TO import Mt n profit. The con-
summers must therefore rely upon the
supply of the home market There
is a good deal written now n
days about the total of the
new clip. some estimating it as
high as 275,O0O,O0O pounds. Our
opinion is that the new clip will
not probably exceed by ten per cent.
that of last year., and this is the estimate
Of a we'll known authority, in wool mat
tcrs. The manufactures in the cast are
Of course bearing the market. Through
out the length and breadth of the land,
dealers, i. C., buyers of wool, arc engag-
cd in the same business of depressing
prices so that they can buy at the anon
alous prices of today, and reap a rich
harvest few months hence. We
say anomalous" prices. We mean it
The exceptionally long and severe win
ter has diminished woolens in the hands
ofwestern merchants. Clothiers will carry
over Il very small stock. Collections are
excellent. The country at large was
never moro prosperous And yet the
price of wool is more depressed than in
1871 ,Our advice TO Kansas wool grow
ers is to hold on to their wool until they
can get higher prices than arc now at
tainable. 1t docs not pay to raise wool
ut current quotations. If the wool
grower would protect himself against.
the~bull-dozing" OF the "wool-wrccker,"
who will soon ovcr-run the land, let him
ask fair, not extreme price, for his
wool and if he can not dispose of it
here, consign it to a commission house
in the east and await the rise in price
that is sure to come. Messrs. Walter
Brown & Co, of Boston, refer in their
Monthly Circular for May to the en-
couraging accounts received of the fa
vorable condition of Kansas wool this
| season. There are thousands of sheep
in this state as good rs can be found in
Michigan, and Ohio and the pretence
that all Kansas wool is inferior, intrin-
sically to that from those states is SIM
ply absurd. The fact is the wool interests
of Kansas have suffered TOO much and
too long from the practices of ignorant
or designing men engaged in wool-rais-
ing. The upright and intelligent men
in the business, have now taken the sub
ject up with a determination to expose
and denounee whatever is incon-
sistent with the reputation of Kansas
wool. We look for q permanent adj
vance in the value ahd extention of the
wool product of this state.
| . LYON COUNTY.
Emporia, May IS, 1881.