Britain at Work
A Pictorial Description of Our National Industries

128 BRITAIN AT WORK. PREPARING THE WOOL. is shaken out, fleece by fleece, and divided into “sorts,” the best of the fleece being thrown into one basket, the skirtings—i.e. the parts about the neck and legs of the sheep—into another, and so on. But theie are many different classes of wool. 1 he long and lustrous staple of the pure Lincoln breed differs from the short, dull, soft South Down as the coat of a polar bear does from that of a chinchilla. I he pure merino fleece from the Riverina of New South Wales differs almost as widely from the strong Leicester cross-bred from New Zealand. Each class —and there are many intermediate grades— has characteristics which render it suitable for most varied purposes. I he wool which is used for the Union Jack at the ship’s masthead would never do for an infant’s christening robe or the green cloth of a billiard table. Hence there is very little admixture of classes, the object of sorting being to separate the qualities. 1 here is, however, a very broad division made between combing and carding wools. A lady in combing her hair holds a portion of it in one hand, holding- the comb in the other. Wool which is too short to be held by the “ nip of the combing machine must be carded. This dividing line closely corresponds with that which separ- ates the worsted and the woollen manufactures. Worsted goods are made from the long or combed wool, woollens from the short and carded wools. When the sorting has been done the wool goes to the comber. It