Part 3

In 1895, another importation of one hundred and sixty-five head were secured by consent of the Sultan from Asia Minor. In 1896 another importation of sixty-three head were landed and sold to the Cape farmers. The highest priced buck of this lot brought about $1,850, and the highest priced doe about $1,000. These goats were not considered extra, with the exception of a few of the tops. They were not uniform, the breeches were bad, bellies deficiently covered, and they carried considerable kemp.

ANGORAS IN OTHER COUNTRIES.

Even before the arrival of Angora goats in South Africa they had been tried in Holland, France and England. Australia also imported some in 1856, but the industry has not grown to any extent in any of these countries. There have been some Angoras exported to Australia from America since 1900. Canada, Mexico, Alaska, and some of the Pacific Islands, have small flocks of Angora goats at the present time. The start has been obtained largely from California.

MOHAIR.

That part of the fleece of the Angora goat, which at a year's growth is composed of long, lustrous, elastic fibers, is called Mohair. It may be more or less curled, but it is readily distinguishable from that part of the fleece of the Angora which is composed of short, stiff fibers, known as kemp.

The word mohair probably has its origin in modern times, as the Turkish word for mohair is tiftick. A theory which is advanced by Mr. George Gatheral of Constantinople, and which is tenable, is that the early Dutch traders who visited Angora, found the native clergy wearing a gown made of mohair. The Turks called the cloth "mahr," and it is possible that the traders applied this word to the raw material. If this be so, the English have corrupted the word into the present term mohair.

The color of mohair varies in different localities and on different individuals. In the vilayet of Koniah, in Asia Minor, is a breed of goats producing a brownish colored mohair. This material is sold upon the market as Koniah mohair. The Koniah goat, however, has been rapidly disappearing, as the herdsmen found that the foreign demand was for white mohair, and they have been crossing the white Angora bucks on the brown Koniah does. There are still over one hundred thousand pounds of Koniah mohair produced each year. In the Angora flocks of Asia Minor one always finds some colored goats. Black, blue, brown or red, usually with an admixture of white, are the common colors. The same thing may be said of the American flocks of Angoras. One may have been breeding white Angoras for years when, without apparent cause, a colored kid is dropped. Then color of the soil may give the mohair a peculiar tinge, but this usually scours out. The kemp in Asia Minor is sometimes a different color from the mohair. The kemp may be red or black and the mohair white. White mohair is what the manufacturer wants. If he wishes to make colored goods, he can dye white whatever color he wishes, but a colored mohair can only be used for certain colored goods.

GRADES AND GRADING OF MOHAIR.

In Turkey, after the fleece is shorn, the owner packs each fleece separately in sacks. He picks out the tag locks, colored fleeces or objectionable mohair, and after washing it, or making it more fit for market, he packs this in a sack by itself. Every village has its buyers, usually Greeks or Armenians, and there are a few traveling buyers. These men gradually collect the mohair. Men who have more money than they need put that money into mohair, as mohair is always salable, and it is so bulky that there is not much danger of it being stolen. There are so many robbers in Turkey that nothing is absolutely safe. One coffee house keeper in a small village sent about six dollars down to a larger place, as he was afraid to keep so much money in his house. When the mohair is collected in the larger towns it is again sorted, care being taken not to mix lots from different sections of the country. It is then forwarded to Constantinople of Ismidt, which is on the Sea of Marmara, near Constantinople. Here expert sorters go over the lots again. They do not break up the fleece, but they collect fleeces which are about the same and from the same district--for instance, Beibazar, Kjutiah, Kastamonia, Eskischehr, etc. These fleeces are then packed in bags and marked x - xx- xxx, or lettered a, b, AA, or numbered 1, 2, 3, etc. The mohair is then ready for exportation. It can be readily seen that a manufacturer who wants a particular kind of mohair can get exactly what he wants, if he knows the kind of mohair which comes from the different districts, and the grade of mohair which is put up under a certain mark by a certain firm. He can order of Mr. B. one hundred bags XX Beibazar mohair, and he knows what he is going to find when he opens the bags. There is a large room in Constantinople where a gang of men are almost constantly at work sorting mohair. The commission men have their store rooms around this central room; when the sorters finish with Mr. A's lot they commence to sort for Mr. B. Thus the same men sort all the mohair, and this insures a uniformity of grade.

In America the plan of handling is somewhat different. It will be easier to tell what should be done than what is done. Until each grower becomes something of an expert sorter, or until we have central depots, where the mohair can be properly graded, the grower should roll the fleeces separately; they should not be tied, and put them in a bag or bale. He should pick out the tag locks, mohair discolored or clotted with urine or faeces, the colored fleeces, burry mohair or very kempy fleeces, and after preparation, put them in a separate parcel. Any kind of a bur or seed which sticks in the mohair must be picked out by hand. If the manufacturer has to do this, he puts a price on the mohair which will leave him plenty of margin. That is, he pays the grower about one-half as much as the mohair would be worth if it were free from this foreign material. If the mohair is very burry, it has to be treated chemically, and this spoils the luster. Sometimes the grower can make good wages by having the burs picked out before the animals are shorn. One man can pick the burs out of from fifteen to twenty-five animals a day, if there are not too many burs in the mohair. If the tag locks can be cleaned sufficiently by washing, they are of some value; but if not, they are hardly worth the expense of shipping.

The mohair shorn from kids should be kept in parcels by itself, as it is usually finer and worth top prices. That of the does, if it differs from that of the wethers, should be packed separately. When the mohair is received by the mill it is sent to the sorting room.

SORTING BY THE MANUFACTURER.

Each goat's fleece is made up of a variety of different grades of mohair. Before a fleece can be spun it must be separated into these different grades as nearly as possible, and this is done by expert sorters, who select from the raw material about seven different degrees of fineness of fiber. They also take into consideration freeness from kemp and color. In separating the fleece much dust is liberated, and as some mohair is liable to carry the bacillus of anthrax, or other dangerous material, this dust, if allowed to circulate in the air, would become a serious menace to the health of the sorters. Wool sorters' disease is by no means uncommon, and one of the American mill owners reported that his sorters had such a dread of a foreign mohair which came packed in a distinctive package, that he had to stop handling this particular lot, although it was profitable stuff to spin.

Photo taken by Dr. Bailey.]

To obviate this danger as far as possible each man opens the fleeces on a table covered with wire screen, under which circulates a strong exhaust current of air which is mechanically generated. Thus small foreign particles and dust in the fleeces are drawn downward. When the fleece is opened the sorter selects that part of the fleece which is known to be the coarsest, i. e., the breech and a strip along the center of the back, and puts this in one lot. Next he selects a narrow strip along the side of the fleece, which is known to be the finest part of the fleece, and puts this in another lot. Now the neck and the belly are separated and thrown into their classes. If the whole fleece were a fine one, and free from kemp, it would be sorted in the same way, but different parts of the fleece would go into proportionately higher classes. The lots which these sorters make are known to spin comparatively definite qualities of yarn. Thus the low breech and the back of most fleeces will not spin over No. 20 to No. 24 yarns, and the sides of good fleeces are fine in fiber and will spin No. 40 to No. 60 yarn.

The quantity of mohair which one man can sort varies considerably, according to the class of mohair which he is given to work upon. One mill estimated that experts can sort between two and three hundred pounds of domestic mohair a day, and that it costs about a cent a pound to thus separate the fleece. After the fleeces are graded, the mohair is ready to be sent to the mill proper for scouring and spinning.

SCOURING.

To-day the process of washing or scouring the fleece is done by machinery. The mohair is fed into a machine in which revolve paddles, which thoroughly mix the fiber with the liquid in this machine. At the opposite end from where it was fed in, the mohair is rolled out over warm rollers, and it is ready to be spun. It is claimed, and with some justice, that American mohair loses or shrinks about 12% to 20% while passing through this washing machine, and that Turkish mohair only shrinks about 13%. This may be due to the fact that some of the Turkish hair had been washed before it was shipped to market, and that by previous sorting some of the dirt had fallen out of the mohair. Then, too, some of the American growers are not very careful to keep the fleeces clean. Straw, sticks, hats, and even stones have been found in some domestic stuff.

MIXING.

After the mohair is thoroughly cleaned it is ready for spinning or carding. In order to spin the fibers most economically, evenly and to the best advantage, some of the mills mix different qualities of mohair of about the same fineness. For instance, Turkish mohair is mixed with Texas and California stuff, or Oregon is mixed with Iowa material. The spinning qualities of mohair from different sections varies, and this mixing tends to give uniformity. After the fibers have been mixed to suit, the mohair is run through straightening machines in preparation for the combing process.

FIRST OR NOBLE COMB.

This comb is so arranged that about two and a half inches of the base of all of the mohair fibers, and any other fibers which may be mixed with them, are held, the ends of the fibers which are longer than two and a half inches, hang freely and are caught in a revolving machine and dragged loose from the combs which hold the base of the fiber. Thus only those fibers two and a half inches long, or less, are left in the first comb. The longer fibers, or tops as they are now called, to distinguish them from the noil, or short fibers, are collected and are again passed through a second comb.

SECOND OR LISTER COMB.

Much the same process as was gone through with in the Noble comb, is repeated, except that now only the Noble top is combed, and as all of the fibers, less than two and a half inches, have been removed from this mohair, the comb is set so that any fibers shorter than four or five inches, shall be held as noil, and only those fibers which are longer than four or five inches shall be included in the top. This combing completed, we have a collection of mohair fibers none of them less than about five inches in length. This top is now ready to spin. This combing is rendered necessary by the fact that all of the mohair contains an admixture of kemp, and kemp cannot be spun with the finer grades of mohair. In getting this kemp out of the mohair many of the short mohair fibers are lost, so that combing is an expensive process. It costs in time, labor and mohair.

SPINNING.

Many strands of this Lister top are now drawn down into a single thread. This thread, if the fibers comprising it are coarse, may have some projecting ends, which give it a rough, uneven appearance, and if so, these ends are burned off. The thread is passed through a gas flame at a given rate of speed by machinery, and the projecting ends are singed. This is called genapping. The yarn is now ready for manufacturing. In Bradford, England, there are mills which only spin the yarn. Their trade is with the manufacturers, both at home and abroad, and it is a known fact that, while France and Germany manufacture much plush and braid, they buy all of their yarn from Bradford.

CARDING.

Short mohair, that is, mohair less than six inches long, is not run through combs, as above described. It is run over a carding wheel, or a large metal cylinder covered with small brads, which mix all the mohair and kemp. After passing over a number of these wheels, which revolve in different directions, the material thus carded is ready to spin.