"Ay, a' 'oo."
_Buyer_. "A' _a_ 'oo?"
_Seller_. "Ay, a' _a_ 'oo."
Which, being interpreted, is: "Wool?"--"Yes, wool." "All wool?"--"Yes,
all wool." "All one wool?"--"Yes, all one wool."
When the stapler arrives for the weighing he brings his steelyards and
sheets; the wool is trod into the sheets, sewn up, and each sheet
weighed separately, an allowance being made for "tare" (the weight of
the sheet), and for "draught" (1/2 a pound in each tod, or 28 pounds).
This last is a survival of the old method of weighing wool, when only
enough fleeces were weighed at a time on the farmer's small machine to
come to a tod as nearly as possible. Buyers did not recognize anything
but level pounds (no quarters or halves), and consequently they got on
the average half a pound over the tod at each separate weighing,
gratis.
Owing to the immense importations of Australian wool, the price of
English, which at one time was half-a-crown a pound, fell to the
miserable figure of sevenpence or thereabouts. When I was in
Lincolnshire, the tenant of the farm where I was a pupil clipped 14
pounds each from 200 "hoggs" (yearling sheep), which at 2s. 6d. per
pound produced 35s. per sheep, equal to L350, so the fall of
three-quarters of the value was a serious loss.
A story is told of a cunning wool buyer in the dim past weighing up
wool on an upper floor of some farm premises.
Pages:
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214