The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-01-27
Washington, D. c.
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Washington, U. Ns' )A the amy .,,. ,...,,., :. . = the experts of the United States bureau of animal industry. They reply that 1t will take 16O pounds a year for every soldier that we send to the trench es. and that it will keep 20 sheep work ing to supply that amount This is sup posing that each sheep gives a fleece of eight pounds. So you see that for every million men we send over the ocean we must have 2o,000,0o0 full-grown sheep here at home or in some other part of the world, and this in addition to the vast amount of wool we need to clothe our own people.
 One hundred and sixty pounds! It seems like a lot of wool for one man. hut you must remember that the fleece as 1t comes from the sheep is about swo-thirds grease and dirt, and that the aoers selected to make woolen cloth are only a part of the whole. In order to know just how the wool is used l have asked some of the private soldiers al Camp Meade as to the outfits they are carrying with them to France, They tell me that the government has lssueu to each man one overcoat, two service uniforms, two olive-drab shirts, three suits of heavy underwear, six pairs oI light weight and four pairs of heavy weight socks two pairs of thick gloves and four warm blankets. All of these must be of the purest of wool, and the same is true of the helmets and sweat CTS which our women are knitting all over the country. I venture there are now something like million women and girls plying their needles, and that the yarn they consume will add one or two sheep to the flock of each soldier.
 There is already 8 shortage of wool, and as the men in the trenches must be kept warm, the rest of us Will be forced to wear shoddy or mixtures or cotton and wool in order that the sup plies for the army may not be impair ed. l am told that England is discuss ing the mixing of cotton with all woolen fabrics She is cutting down the weight of the cloth and is reducing her exports to other parts of the world. This loss will be greatly felt by our tailors, who have been buying large part of their stuffs from her. During the first Is months of the war England used 121 ,too, GOO yards of piece goods for her soldiers enough to have made strip of cloth more than two yards wide reaching clear around the world.
 Every wooden mill in the United States capable of making anything for the sol- diers is now busy upon war orders and the question is where we shall get the wool to supply them. We have something like 300 factories in New England, and there are hundreds of others scattered here and there over the country. They range in size from small concerns. with two or three dozen hand, up to that ot the American Woolen company, at Law renee Mass, whose machines occupy 10,- 100000 square feet of floor space and eat up the fleeces of 250o0 sheep every day.
 As to our own product of wool, this has been steadily declining, while the con sumption has just as steadily increased We produced 32100O.000 pounds of wool in 1910 and our production last year was 26,000,0o0 pounds less. At present, as it comes from the fleece. the total amount of wool we produce is so little that if equally divided it would give only three pounds to every man, woman and child in the United States. It is so little that if 1t were all made into clothing it would hardly suffice to supply a suit for one person in three. and the rest of us would have to go naked.
 Moreover. decline is going on in the production of wool all over the world.