St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1890-04-10

/ formed. almost like the scales of a
fish. A hair seen through a micro
scopes thus a long tube formed by a
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 to-
gether that the edge appears like the
teeth of a very fine saw. Goats hair
has a more rapid growth and longer
cells, so that it IS less regular and
straight. and shows little of the
toOth-Iike edge. The hair of sheep of
the common sort is also irregular,
with a 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 adj
vantages. The hair of the negro,
with it's tendency to kink or curl, is
mockingly called wool" because it
co 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 gra-
dations that it would be difficult to
draw an exact line between hair and
wool, or in this respect to separate
the sheep from the goats Witness
the Angorag goat, whose fleece, known
as mohair, is reckoned q superior
wool, and the Peruvian alpaca, or
llama. The microscope distinguish
es very clearly, however, between
,-oaI 1.,J Ill A. Clio 81 --IIoI -
an even double flament of gum eX-
uded by the silk-wOrm; and between
wool and the vegetable fbres, such
as cotton, which, growing as a tube,
dries into a halftwistcd ribbon, hav-
ing no barbed edge. The root of the
hair has a natural tendency to dry
up as warm weather approaches, al
lowing the hair to fall free from the
skin; thus animals "shcd their coats"
But when hair is cut, as with human
beings, 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
hbres is wonderful. On the pelt of a
full-blood ram, DR.. Cutting, of the
Vermont Board of Agriculture, reck-
Oned with his microscope 90, 300 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 develop
ment of the last hundred years, and
with the modern race-hOrse, furnish
es the most extraordinary examples
of economy 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"-so named from the vii
lage of W~orstead, 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 II by cards, like the
curry-comb used for horses, before
spinning, and these make the "wool-
ems" proper, thicker and softer and
more like felt. The shorter woods
also make felt, which is produced not
by weaving, but by mating or beat
ing together the fibres, until the
of the wool catch into each
other, and thus make a continuous
somewhat as paper is made.
But these woods grade into each
other imperceptibly-naturc rarely
Jumps; and the invention of imprOv-
ed combs has brought into use for
"worsteds" many staples formerly
too short for anything but wool
On the other hand, the final
of these gradations are found
in woods so various that they may
almost be called different fbres, so
different are their qualities, instead
of being grouped under II word
"wool.'-LFrOm "A Suit of Clothes"
by X. K. Bowker, in Harper's Maya
for Anril