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Show Los Angeles, June 28 During these times when we are all thinking , about elimination of waste, I know of no more profitable field for opera- j tion than in connection with the wool i clip of California and other Western states, which is now going very largely in the grease to'Kew England factories and paying freight on about 60 per cent of waste between the original or-iginal fleece and scoured wool. California stands second largest in lamb production and third largest in production of wool more than 75 per cent of the total wool clip of the United States comes from West of the Rocky Mountains and practically the entire production goes to eastern or southern textile plants, the manufactured manu-factured articles shipped back into the western states to supply the needs of nearly twelve million persons. per-sons. I There is a continued ' shifting of population from eastern to western j states. Naturally manufacture and trade conditions must be adjusted accordingly. ac-cordingly. Here is a tremendous industry within our grasp and one of great economic importance to the "western states; it seems reasonable that we may at least go so far as to create storage, pulling and scouring facilities. facilit-ies. lUnder present conditions the grading of wool (seven commercial grades) is accomplished after several thousand miles of transportation, and wool seems to be the one big production produc-tion tlhat is not graded near the source. We have found it advantageous advantag-eous to grade at or near the source our fruits and vegetables, field, dairy, poultry and farm products to the benefit of the grower or producer. Why not Wool? Manifestly it is more economical to transport the scoured product to the point of manufacture than to ship the raw material with the 60 per cent of waste. Furthermore it is not beyond be-yond reasonable expectations that considerable part of the western clip might be utilibed in manufacturing at least the things that we wear and use, shipping the graded and scoured wool or the manufactured products to the east, and we also have the advantage ad-vantage of foreign markets easily available from the ports of the Pacific. Paci-fic. There is no overproduction of wool, in fact we import about 50 per cent of our annual requirements. In this instance we may well profit pro-fit by the principle laid down by the first laws of New England where thr settlers were required to raise a certain cer-tain number of sheep and to make up into cloth enough of the wool to furnish fur-nish warm clothing during the winter months for the use of those hardy pioneers and their families. The wool growers of the western states have accomplished much in im-pioving im-pioving the fleece and working out ' economies of great benefit to the industry in-dustry as a whole, but until we shape ourselves to handle the clip along economical lines the industry, will continue to be unduly burdened. Small textile plants have been located lo-cated in some of the western states, some successful, others unsuccessful; but what has been done is a very slight gesture towards an enormous project of great potei i lalities. Improper Im-proper management and lack of sufficient suf-ficient capital are the two elements which have determined the destiny of such activites. Wool represents one of our greatest undeveloped resources resourc-es and apparently holds out big possibilities pos-sibilities to labor and capital under : proper leadership. I We should keep in mind that theru is no real prosperity to be had by placing an undue burden in transportation transpor-tation or otherwise upon any person or business an expansion and development de-velopment of our natural resour:es results beneficially to the country as a whole. |