The Calhoun chronicle. [volume] (Grantsville, W. Va.) 1883-1984, 1900-11-27
KNOWS ALL ABOUT WOOL
A MAN WHO READS IT LIKE AN
OPEN BOOK.


ner of which the piece de resistance is
mutton, may stand before her mirror
dressing i'm woollen and afterward use
complexion lotions made of the grease
from wool, without having considered
how necessary the sheep has been to
IL ALL
The idea suggests the answer TO the
old rhymed question of the school
reader:
Lazy sheep. pray tell me why,
Thus in pleasant fields you lie.
Eating grass and daisies white
FIR N the morning to the night
But there are people who do know
what the answer to this rhymed query
should be. j. III. Howard, wool ex-
pert. in the Chamber Of Commerce
Building, knows. Show him n 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 n 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 it
was ailing, or reduced i'm 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 I'm some form i'm almost any
drug store. In common English il is
the grease out of sleeps wool. In an
original package it is about ten shades
darker and browner than is vasellne,
and it smells like sheepfold on a
warm. showery afternoon. 1t is of the
consistency of butter, and. aside from
being the basis of half the toilet To-
tions and healing salves on the mar
ket. it is Il 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 i'm the washing
out of the fifteen to eightyfive per
cent. of grease and dirt that is found
in the natural fleece. Naphtha, fill
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 ii to
snowy whiteness.
1t is in the fibre of wool, whether
short or long, fine or coarse weak or
strong, that fleeces are judged.
One of the cOmmOnest marks of in
feriority in wool comes from the i'll
ness Of the animal OH whose back it
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 n case the wool growing at
that period shows marked structural
weakness. The fibre i'm such cases
breaks easily in the centre. If the
animal suffers in the fall the weak
place will be nearer the tip; IL i'm 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 a consequence. In trous-
ers, especially, it gives way at the
knees. giving that "baggy" effect so
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 I'm 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. often
it is i'm the length Of the wool hbres
only that pair Of So trousers differs
from pair worth $50.
Time was in the history Of English
tailoring when five to seven years was
the period for transferring wool from
the back OF sheep to the coat for the
back of the man. a rlpening process
was considered necessary before tine
fibre would take lasting dye To-day
the wool clipped In the early spring Is
spun and woven the next winter.
In the structure Of wool hundreds of
little furry particles radiatc from the
fibre toward the tip Of the strand. 10
take such % fibre between the thumb
and finger, rubbing thumb and finger
together with some pressure. the fibre
crawls from between them. moving
root foremost A hair from the hcsa
acts I'm the same way. so that n sec
ton Of a hair. cut from tho middle of
n long braid, always points to the end
that grew nearer to the scalp.
Sheep arc said to have done more
for the English landscapes than the
Englishman Certainly they have
done more for the English factory
than almost any other one resource
Chicago Tribune
wainuts in California
Some idea Of the extent Of walnut