The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1890-04-03
Bottom Facts About Wool.

is a plant rooted IN the skin. It's
root is a cone, connected with the
sensitive layer of the skin, whence it
draws sustenance. Its life is not
identical with the life of the body,
for hair grows more or less after
death. This ''root of the hair" ex
udes the hair pulp, which is formed
into cells containing the pigment
giving color to the hair, and each
row of these cells forms a ring. AS
the ring of cells is pushed away from
the skin by the giving out of fresh
pulp from the root, the cells dry, and
scales are formed, almost like the
scales of fish. A hair seen through
a microscope is thus a long tube
formed by sheath made up of these
rings of scales. The human hair is
usually long. straight, and regular,
and the scales are SO fine and SO
close together that the edge appears
like the teeth of a very fine saw.
Goats hair has more rapid growth
and longer cells, SO that it is less
regular and straight, and shows little
of the tooth-like edge. The hair of
sheep of the common sort is also ir-
regular, with tendency to curl or
wave, but with marked tooth-like
edges. This is wool, and it is the
tendency to twist and the barbed
projections which give this fibre its
peculiar advantages. The hair of
the negro, with its tendency to kink
or curl, is mockingly called "wool,
because it to this extent resembles
the hair of the sheep. Curly hair is,
as a matter of fact, less perfect than
straight hair But through all this
range-of the human plant, goats
hair, and sleeps wool-nature shows
such close graduations that it would
be difficult to draw an exact line be-
tween hair and wool, or in this res
pect to separate the sheep from the
goats. Witness the Angora goat,
whose fleece, known as mohair, is
reckoned a superior wool, and the
Peruvian alpaca, or llama. The
microscope distinguishes very clear
ly, however, between wool and silk.
the fibre of which is an even double
filament of gum exuded by the silk
worm; and between wool and the
vegetable fibres, such as cotton,
which, growing as tube, dries into
a halt-tWisted ribbon, having no
barbed edge. The root of the hair
has natural tendency to dry up as
warm weather approaches, allowing
the hair to fall free from the skin;
thus animals ''shed their coats" But
when hair is cut, as with human be-
ings, or the fleece sheared, as in the
case of sheep, nature adapts itself to
the demand upon it. and growth is
continuous. The number of these
fbres is wonderful. On the pelt of a
full-blood ram, DR.. Cutting, of the
Vermont Board of Agriculture, reck-
oned with his microscope 222, 800 to
the square inch; an ordinary open
wool sheep will have one-thirtieth as
many.
The cultivated sheep, yielding the
fine, regular woods for which modern
machinery calls, has been, like that
machinery, virtually the development
of the last hundred years, and with
the modern race horse, furnishes the
most extraordinary examples of 20
onomy as an intelligent art. Of
these woods two distinct orders are
recognized. The longer staples, in
which also the fibre is straighter and
the barbs less marked, are called
"combing wools, because they are
Strengthened out, much as hair is, by
combs, and laid fiat together for
spinning into the smooth, hard
tightly twisted yarns which make the
fine, hard finished fabrics called
"worsteds"- named from the vii
lage of Worstead, in Norfolk, where
Flemish weavers, brought over by
Edward III. about 1881, made this
kind of goods. The shorter staples,
more curly and with marked barbs
are called "carding wools," because
they are treated by cards, like the
curry-comb used for horses, before
spinning, and these make the "wool
ems" proper, thicker and softer ane
more like felt. The shorter WOOL
also make felt, which is produced
not by weaving, but by mating o.
beating together the fbres, until tn,
barbs of the wool catch into eacl
other, and thus make continuou
fabric, somewhat as paper is made
But these woods grade into each 9th
er imperceptibly-nature rarel.
jumps; and the invention of i'm
proved combs has brought into us
for 'worsteds" many staples former
ly too short for anything but 'wool
ems" On the other hand, the fna
result of these graduations is foun'
in woods so various that they may al
,,ooct ha called different fhreS c