SECTION 1 TOPS AND OTHER PARTIAL MANUFACTURES OF WOOL, GENERAL INFORMATION TARIFF ACT OF SEPTEMBER 21, 1922 PAR. 1106. Wool, and hair of the kinds provided for in this schedule, which has been advanced in any manner or by any process of manufacture beyond the washed or scoured condition, including tops, but not further advanced than roving, 33 cents per pound and 20 per centum ad valorem. DOMESTIC PRODUCTION Paragraph 1106 covers all partial manufactures of wool or hair advanced beyond the raw-material stage but not yet spun into yarn. It includes laps and sliver from the preparing machines, sliver from the worsted cards and can gill boxes, tops from the worsted comb, sliver from spindle gill boxes, sliver or drawing from draw frames, slubbing from slubbers, roving from worsted speeders, and laps and roving from woolen cards. It also includes dyed wool or hair. Combed wool or tops, used in the manufacture of worsted yarns, is the only article of commercial importance; the other partial manufactures are rarely bought or sold, being utilized in the mills where produced. Raw materials and sources.-The raw materials of the wool-manufacturing industry are the wool of the sheep and the hair of the camel, Angora goat, Cashmere goat, alpaca, and other like animals. Of wool, the United States produces about half of its requirements; the main sources of importation in 1923 were South America, the United Kingdom, Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand. Of mohair, the United States produced about 60 per cent of its requirements; imports are mainly from England, Turkey, and South Africa. The other fibers mentioned are entirely of foreign origin. Camel's hair was imported mainly from China and Russia, Cashmere goat hair from England and China, and alpaca and vicuna from Peru. Equipment. Although various machines are used in the manufacture of the articles included under paragraph 1106, the most distinctive are the cards and the combs. The census shows the following data: TABLE 1.-Total number of cards and combs on wool in the United States, 1899–1925 • Not reported. 3 Based on reports received by the Bureau of the Census from 951 manufacturers, operating 1,112 mills. This is exclusive of 11 manufacturers operating 16 mills, who failed to report for the month of May; these mills had about 125 sets of woolen cards and 14 worsted combs. D Of the 1,451 wool-combing machines used in 1899, 76.8 per cent were of foreign manufacture; of the 2,294 combs used in 1919, 76.867.8 per cent were of foreign manufacture. Information is not available as to the proportion of domestic and foreign-made combing machines used in 1925. Preliminary treatment of raw fibers.-As the original wool or hair fibers pass through many processes before reaching the condition of the materials described in paragraph 1106, the manner in which the original fibers are commonly handled and manipulated will be briefly outlined. Wool fleeces are usually baled and shipped as sheared from the sheep; that is, "in the grease," without being washed or scoured. On receipt at the mill they are first sorted into grades, according to length, fineness, elasticity, and strength. Although it is customary to divide a fleece into 5 to 7 grades, the wool from a single sheep is sometimes sorted into as many as 13 or 14 grades. Hair of the Angora goat, the Cashmere goat, the alpaca, and like animals is sorted in a way similar to that of wool. Sorting or grading are necessary processes because wool varies widely in quality with the breed of the animal and the part of the body from which it is taken. It is clear. therefore, that any attempt to utilize the total clip from one animal as a homogenous mass would be uneconomical. In general, the longstaple fibers are used in worsted manufacturing, while the short-staple fibers are employed in woolen manufacturing. There are, however, other essential differences between woolen and worsted manufacturing besides length of staple. For instance, it is possible to use one-half of a bag of wool for making woolen yarn and the other half for worsted yarn. The difference between these two types of yarns is largely brought about by the different kinds of machinery employed in the woolen and worsted industries. Wool and hair fibers contain varying degrees of grease and dirt, and if a large quantity of foreign matter is present they must be put through a machine which mechanically removes much of the dirt, straw, and other extraneous matter. If the raw fibers are in a fairly clean condition, this dusting or cleaning is omitted. When fibers are washed, scoured, or otherwise freed from grease and other foreign substances, the resulting product is known as scoured wool or hair. Some wools and hair contain vegetable impurities even after being scoured, and these are removed by carbonizing. The vegetable matter is disintegrated by this process, and subsequent washing, heating, drying, and dusting reduce it to powder, leaving the woolin a thoroughly clean condition known as carbonized wool. The carbonizing of scoured wool is usually carried out only when the fiber is to be used for woolen yarns, because in the production of worsted yarns the vegetable impurities are nearly all removed in the carding and combing processes. The various stages through which the wool and hair fibers must pass from their original state and up to the time they are ready to be spun into yarn are presented graphically in Chart A. CHART A.-Sequence of processes in the manufacture of woolen and worsted yarns, as published in Bulletin No. 238, June, 1918, of the U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Methods of production. Methods of production vary according to the type of material used and the kind of product desired. As shown in the above chart, the production of woolen yarn requires few processes, whereas that of worsted yarn requires many processes and may employ various systems of manufacture. In woolen manufacturing, the scoured wool, which may or may not have been carbonized, is too dry to be properly worked, and it is sprinkled with oil or oil emulsion. This lubricates the fibers, and the uniform penetration of the oil results in reduced waste and a more workable material for later machine processes. The clean, oiled wool is put through a machine called a mixing picker, which separates the larger masses of fiber, thoroughly mixes them, effects a more thorough distribution of the oil, and finally produces a relatively loose mass of separated fibers. The wool is then carded. The primary object of carding is (1) to remove as far as possible all knots, seeds, and burrs, (2) to separate one fiber from another, and (3) to arrange the fibers into a continuous strand, all parts of which are uniform in structure and weight. Carding causes the fibers to be brushed out into a thin sheet, which in turn is condensed into a round, soft, fuzzy strand known as roving or roping. No attempt is made to parallel the fibers which are of different lengths. The woolen "roving" (really sliver since it contains no twist) thus formed is wound on long spools or bobbins and is then ready to be spun into woolen yarn. Woolen roving is seldom bought or sold as an article of commerce, because it is commonly used as one of the products in the continuous operations of woolen manufacturing. 2 In worsted manufacturing it is customary to subject the scoured wool to both carding and combing. Long wools are generally put through preparing machines which open up the wool fibers, separate and lay them parallel or nearly so, and by drawing the fibers out into a sliver, put them into a fit condition for combing. Medium-length wools are usually passed through the worsted card; the sliver therefrom is backwashed and drawn out by gill boxes before being combed. Shorter wools are, as a rule, treated by the so-called French system, which prepares the fiber in a manner similar to that described for medium wools. The first two methods are commonly known as the English system. Combing, the next major machine process in preparing the fiber for spinning, arranges the fibers in a parallel position and removes a certain percentage of the shorter fibers (noil) and any foreign matter. If the fiber is oiled before being combed, the result is oil top, but if it is combed without oil it is known as dry top. The operation of combing is very complicated and requires highly specialized machinery. The leading wool combs are known as (1) Noble, (2) Holden, (3) Lister, and (4) French or Heilman. The Noble comb is most widely used in the United States because of its adaptability to the wools consumed in this country; the French comb, practically the only other kind employed, is particularly suitable for short wools, and is also extensively adopted for soft yarns for knit and dress goods. It is estimated that 75 per cent of the combs used in this country are of the Noble type and 25 per cent are French. The latter, however, is said to be gaining in favor over the former. The Noble comb predominates in the United Kingdom, although the Lister and the French comb are much used; Germany uses almost wholly the French comb; and France the French, the Noble, and the Holden. There is considerable diversity in the types of combs used abroad, and the rate of production varies with each type, but the basic principle is the same in all. Several strands of slivers are run together into 2 The worsted card differs from the woolen in construction and in combination of parts, but the operation is similar in principle in the two types of machines. the combing machine, and the product is a continuous untwisted strand of parallel fibers. The combed sliver is known as tops. In French combing a much shorter staple can be used than is required in English combing. This difference is illustrated by Table 2. TABLE 2.-Length of fiber required for combing The two systems of drawing in general use-the English and the French-are in principle the same. More processes, however, are required by the French system and the product has no twist; by the English or Bradford system some twist is imparted. Most fine wools are combed by the Bradford system, although large quantities are put through French combs. The proportion combed by the French system depends to a considerable extent on where the wool was grown, as climatic conditions affect the length and soundness of the fiber. After combing, the top is subjected to a drawing process, the object of which is to straighten the fibers, reduce the size of the combed sliver, render it more nearly uniform, and make it ready for spinning. To obtain the top desired, it is customary to put the combed sliver through gill boxes once more; that is, a number of these slivers are passed through each gill box and drawn out into one strand. The strand thus produced is coiled into flat-end balls (tops) of equal weight, and in this shape is ready for shipment or for further manufacture in the mill where made. Many machines are required to obtain this result, the number varying according to the character of the wool and the kind of yarn to be produced. Classification of tops.-The classification of tops made for sale is based on the quality of the wool from which it is combed. This quality represents fineness, soundness, and length of staple, but neither in this country nor abroad have grades or standards been fixed or codified by any public or official body. Nevertheless, by force of custom, the variation in standards among top makers is not great, for there is a fairly close agreement among producers and traders as to what a top of a specified grade should be. 3 The quality of any given type of wool may vary widely, depending upon the breeding and the physical condition of the sheep, the locality in which it is raised, the weather, and many other variable factors. These various conditions, of course, affect the character of the top, which will correspond in quality to the raw wool from which it is produced. However, the relation between the count of the top and the count or fineness of the yarn which may be spun from it is not so close. Thus, yarn produced from tops coarser than 64s is rarely as • For some time, however, the United States Department of Agriculture has been endeavoring to establish standard lengths of staple for the classification of raw wool grades according to the usual commercial divisions. This work has been carried on in cooperation with producers and manufacturers of wool in this country and abroad. |