The Banner-Democrat. [volume] (Lake Providence, East Carroll Parish, La.) 1892-current, 1900-12-15
KNOWS ALLABOUT WOOL
A MAN WHO READS IT LIKE AN
OPEN BOOK:

OPEN BOOK:
He Can Tell You in Five Seconds VINE"
End of . Fibre Grew Neeres' n'
skin-what Degras 10 and o'nof
markable Facts.
To-day a woman having eaten dln-
ner of which the piece de resistance Is
mutton, may stand before her mirror
dressing in woollen and afterward use
comnlexion lotions made of the grease
from wool, without having consioereo
how necessary the sheep has been TO
it all.
The idea suggests the answer to the
old rhymed question of the schooi
reader:
LAZY sheep, pray tell me why,
Thus in pleasant fields you lie,
Eating grass and daisies white
From the morning to the nightF
But there are people who do know
what the answer to this rhymed query
should be. j. II. Howard. wool ex-
pert. In the Chamber of Commerce
Building, knows. Show him a hun
dred-pound bag Of wool and he may
even tell you In what State the owner
of the sheep lives. He can tell you in
FIVE seconds which end Of a fibre OF
wool grow nearest the skin and which
pointed outward. If the sheep on
whose back the fibre grew has been
sick he can tell you In what month 1t
was ailing, or reduced in flesh. And
more than that, he will tell you that
n pair of trousers made from the wool
of an ailing sheep, or from one that
has been ailing, will bag at the knees
twice as quick as they would If made
from the coat Of healthy animal.
And, in addition to all this. he knows
what degras is.
You won't find the word in the die
tionary, but you can find the sub
stance in some form In almost any
drug store. In common English 1t Is
the grease out of sleeps wool. In an
original package 1t Is about ten shades
darker and browner than Is vaseline.
and it smells like sheepfold on
warm, showery afternoon. 1t Is of the
consistency of butter, and. aside from
being the basis of half the toilet To-
lions and healing salves on the mar
ket, it is q by-product, meaning more
to the process of turning wool into
cloth than any other wool-washing
method ever devised.
Soaps and alkalies long have been
Injurious to wool fibres in the washing
out of the fifteen to eighty-five per
cent. of grease and dirt that is found
In the natural fleece. Naphtha. Ill
tered through great tanks Of wool, car
ries the natural oil from the fibre to
the bottom. From this the naphtha Is
separated, leaving the degras, which,
in one of its clarified forms, is the Ian
aline of commerce. Washing wool so
treated in clear water cleanses 1t to
snowy whiteness.
It is in the fibre of wool. whether
short or long. fine or coarse. weak or
strong, that fieeces are judged.
One of the commonest marks Of in
feriority in wool comes from the ILL
ness of the animal on whose back 1t
grew. Anything that weakens the VI
tality of the animals affects the wool
fibre. The animal may have been well
| in the fall and early winter. In mid
winter it may lose flesh for some rea-
son and then fatten toward spring.
| In such a case the wool growing at
| that period shows marked structural
weakness. The fibre in such cases
| breaks easily In the centre. II the
animal suffers in the fall the weak
place will be nearer the tip; If in the
spring it will be nearer the roots of
| the fibre.
| Wool such as this woven into cloth
breaks under strain, and the yarn
stretches as q consequence. In trous.
ers, especially, it gives way at the
knees, giving that "baggy" effect 80
| detestible to the man who is fond OF
creases.
As to baggy trousers, too, short sta
pie woods are conducive to the effect
Twisted into yarn this short wool
gives under strain just in proportion
to it's length. 1t is this stretching Of
the wooden yarns that make the bagged
knees.
| Long staple woods are used for trous
ers patterns of the best quality. Otter
it Is in the length Of the wool fibres
only that a pair of So trousers differs
from a pair worth SIS.
Time was in the history of English
tailoring when five to seven years was
the period for transferring wool from
the back of a sheep to the coat for the
back of the man. A ripening process
was considered necessary before thu
fibre would take lasting dye. To-day
the wool clipped in the early spring 1!
spun and woven the next winter.
In the structure of wool hundreds o.
little furry particles radiate from thu
fibre toward the tip of the strand. tt
take such a fibre between the thumb
and finger, rubbing thumb and f1ngel
, together with some pressure, the f1br,
crawls from between them, movin,
+, root foremost. A hair from the heat
, acts in the same way. so that sec
ton of a hair, cut from the middle o
, long braid, always points to the enc
that grew nearer to the scalp.
Sheep are said to have done NOR
for the English landscapes than tn
, Englishman. Certainly they hav
done more for the English factor,
than almost any other one resource
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