Mr. SIMS. These will not even compete with shoddy material? Dr. WILSON. These are worse than shoddy.

Mr. CLARK. As a matter of fact, the manufacturers might buy that wool pretty cheap if the French bill was in operation and put that off on the public as virgin wool.

Mr. MONTAGUE. It would be virgin wool.

Mr. WINSLOW. Do you think that good judgment was displayed on the part of the buyers of the wool to take it in for the benefit of the Government?

Dr. WILSON. If you will find me the prices they paid for it, else I can not answer. I think the wool sold at the same prices as other wool sold which had been stored years and years and it was turned over in the general mixup. This wool probably brought 50 cents. I do not know; I can not get at it in any way. Mr. Clark, will you be kind enough? I have here a list of weights, if you will help me at these these are average. I do not want to pose as an expert. I do not know anything about that part of it, manufacturing. I do know something about what these people were telling on the range.

Mr. CLARK. It is put down, ladies' goods, 9 ounces, and 12 ounces ladies' suitings, which run in these weights, and ladies' cloakings run in much heavier weights.

Dr. WILSON. Take the next.

Mr. CLARK. Men's goods run from 12 ounces to 16 ounces. Men's goods are even made lighter weight than that for strong wear. They will run down to 9 to 10 ounces.

Dr. WILSON. They are much heavier than 16.

Dr. CLARK. They do run considerably heavier than 16 ounces, and in these times winter suits are frequently made out of cloth that does not weigh more than 13 or 14 ounces. The weights of the goods have gone down in recent years. People are wearing lighter weight clothing than they used to wear. Overcoatings are from 24 to 30 ounces. That is right. These weights are all right.

Dr. WILSON. You see whenever we get together we will have no trouble. Mr. Clark will be gentle and I will be gentler. The reason I ask for these figures which were given me is I have gone through this argument against the truth in fabric bill and I have taken some of the figures, and it was necessary to be bolstered up by Mr. Clark, which he has kindly done. The figures I have here would in the aggregate be too light. There were 620,000,000 yards of cloth made last year.

Mr. CLARK. Thereabouts.

Dr. WILSON. In that neighborhood. This is exactly correct. That is 620,000,000 yards of cloth, if all good wool was used in that, that is this high-priced wool, the shrinkage of which is about 60 per cent. What we mean by shrinkage is this, gentlemen. You take 100 pounds of wool and we say the shrinkage is 60 per cent of dirt, grease, and foreign substance in the wool, or 60 pounds of that, and out of 100 then 40 pounds of it is wool. That is what I mean by shrinkage. The shrinkage is what is taken away from the wool, the foreign substance, and leaves the clean wool, and when there is a shrinkage of 60 per cent the clean wool in that article would be 40 pounds. If the shrinkage was 65, the clean wool would be 35. If the shrinkage was 70, which it is in cases, and the Government report mentioned some at 70, the clean wool would be only 30 pounds.

If this was using the fine wool to make that, you would have to take two and a half times that because it would take two and a half pounds of grease wool to make a yard. To make 620,000,000 yards, it would take two and a half times. I am using 60 per cent shrink which that fine grade of wool does do and you have 1,550,000,000 pounds of wool. If you would make it 50 shrink, it would catch a whole lot of lighter wools and you would still have 1,240,000,000 pounds. You would have two times the 620,000,000 yards. That is, actual wool.

I forget the amount of wool raised in the world. It is all estimates, a pretty good estimate, and I should judge that it is practically onehalf of the entire clip of the world.

Mr. CLARK. Two billion eight hundred million.

Dr. WILSON. That would be practically one-half of the entire wool of the world, 2,500,000,000. That is approximate. It is like the statistics of sheep that the colonel has been reading. The census is taken every 10 years and the Agriculture Department, as I understand, bases the live stock number from the census of that year, under the condition of the live stock returned last year; if too much, they will add to the live stock returns each year that percentage; if too little, they will subtract from the returns of the live stock the same percentage and then we get it corrected every 10 years.

Mr. WINSLOW. These figures you have given, the department has held them out; they have the figures of the field agents out through the country during the years reported on.

Dr. WILSON. Yes; I am one of the field agents and they write me letters. I can not give the other value. They mean the hide value.

Mr. WILSON. What value do you put on these reports?

Dr. WILSON. So much that I do not pay much attention to the things until we get the 10-year period.

Mr. WINSLOW. Then do you believe that the agricultural reports are of no value?

Dr. WILSON. Yes; they are of value, but men that are used to them know that they are only relatively of value.

Mr. WINSLOW. Are they doing any good to the public if they are guesswork?

Dr. WILSON. I think at times they are doing harm.

Mr. WINSLOW. Would you favor the elimination of that service? Dr. WILSON. No; I think it is of some good.

Mr. WINSLOW. You have some hope for that department?

Dr. WILSON. Yes.

Mr. WINSLOW. You think some day they will catch up with the facts?

Dr. WILSON. They catch up every 10 years; once every 10 years. Mr. SIMS. The oftener they guess the more accurate they can come. Dr. WILSON. They have a basis to start with.

The CHAIRMAN. I do not know why there should be so much guessing about it. In my State, the tax roll is a pretty careful index of the rate of growth in every county of the State.

Dr. WILSON. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. I assume that most States have a like system. If we get these estimates the way the assessment rolls are given, it would be a pretty definite list of facts.

Dr. WILSON. In Ohio, I do not know in other States, but I was raised in Ohio, and when I was there the assessor would come around and the assessors would meet in the counties and would fix the prices for horses. One year it was $150. The assessor would come to you and say that the horse was pretty good; it was worth $150. Here is a mare practically worn out, she is worth $40; here is a yearling, it might be worth $60, that yearling colt. Here was a team of horses probably worth $200 apiece. Then he would add these together and divide by the price of stock and say there was that much. If you happened to have a lot of stuff below the average, the return would be below the average. It was the same way with sheep, cattle, and hogs.

Mr. MONTAGUE. Do the census people do any better than you can? Dr. WILSON. They may.

Mr. MONTAGUE. Why are you relying on the census particularly? Do they seem to have the advantage in getting the facts? Dr. WILSON. Certainly.

Mr. MONTAGUE. I understood you to say they do not.

Dr. WILSON. No; I meant the field men that the judge was talking about. These field men are mostly volunteer men.

We can send in returns of our own. If it is not too much trouble, can you tell me the amount that report gives for the last year?

Mr. WINSLOW. 1919?

Dr. WILSON. Yes.

Mr. CLARK. Three hundred and fourteen million.

Dr. WILSON. For the State of Wyoming?

Mr. WINSLOW. No; I do not think so.

Mr. CLARK. Grease and scoured?

Dr. WILSON. How much in grease?

Mr. WINSLOW. Grease, 34,707,000.

Mr. CLARK. That is a mistake in the printing.

Mr. WINSLOW. Scoured, 11,453,000.

Dr. WILSON. We had a fraction over 22,000,000 last year. I have a report from every railroad, and we shipped from the State of Wyoming 22,000,000.

Mr. CLARK. A little more than the year before.

Mr. MONTAGUE. What about difference between the 22,000,000 and the 34,000,000?

Dr. WILSON. Not in that State. There may be some remaining in the State.

Mr. MONTAGUE. Are the statistics wrong, then?

Dr. WILSON. They are not absolutely correct. They are approximately correct. They are not wrong statistics, but it is for the other year, and so on.

Another question, while I think of it, is how it comes that sheep may increase or decrease and the wool the reverse. Now, in Wyoming, the condition that Mr. Hatzel told you of when the wind was so bad, if that ground was bare of snow, the clipping would be very heavy. We have had the same sheep under the identical conditions, cold weather one year, and bands sheared more than the other year, simply because dirt had blown into them and when the sheep came to be shorn the whole top of the sheep is sand and dirt, so that the statistics may look unreasonable, that sheep have decreased and still increased the wool supply. When you take a State like Wyo

ming, 3,000,000 sheep, and you increase 38,000, that is not anything in that State. The percentage is practically nil.

The CHAIRMAN. The trend is in the right direction?

Dr. WILSON. Yes. The trend is in the right direction. Now, I have made some figures on the basis here and taking it from this record [indicating], that estimate is as correct as they can make it, although I do not like it by a man who is not an expert, when they say that of the woolen suitings and overcoatings and the dress goods; that is, women's dress goods. Now, it is hard for a person who does not know to figure out anything on that.

Mr. CLARK. It is taken right from the census figures.

Dr. WILSON. That is probably all right. Another thing, Mr. Clark, are there any census figures later than 1914? Those are the last figures you have?

Mr. CLARK. Yes.

Dr. WILSON. Five years have elapsed since and you have no other figures?

Mr. CLARK. That gives you the latest.

Dr. WILSON. That is one thing you are taking into consideration, gentlemen, because the statistics five years ago are not much at present to do business on.

Taking that up from another place, I get the substitute for virgin wool. Some of them are just as good; some of them not. Mohair, camel's hair, alpaca, and vicuna, 15,900,000 pounds, over 5 per cent of the entire use of virgin wool. Other animal hair-what does that cover?

Mr. CLARK. I really do not know, Doctor, I never used any of it. Dr. WILSON. I will tell you what I think it is. I think it is cow's hair. I have picked cow's hair out of blankets.

Mr. CLARK. Somebody suggests dog's hair.

Dr. WILSON. It is hair, and I think it is cow's hair. Mr. Clark does not know what it is because he does not use it. I do not suppose any of them use it, but they still use 28,000,000 pounds of it. Mr. MONTAGUE. Would that have been goats?

Dr. WILSON. No. Goats are in another place. In other words, 9 per cent of the entire use of virgin wool.

Mr. MONTAGUE. Where did you get that figure?

Dr. WILSON. Out of this book.

Mr. MONTAGUE. Other animal hair is 14,700,000.

Dr. WILSON. That is what I said, certainly.

Mr. MONTAGUE. You quoted 28,000,000 just now.
Dr. WILSON. I put the two together here.

Mr. CLARK. Camel's hair? You referred to vicuna. Those are all very good fibers.

Dr. WILSON. Some of them are worth more than wool, possibly. Mr. CLARK. They make beautiful wool.

Dr. WILSON. Then reworked wool fiber, 70,900,000.

Mr. CLARK. It is 85,000,000.

Dr. WILSON. Have I got the wrong book then? These books are all published alike?

Mr. CLARK. Yes.

Dr. WILSON. Then you have got different figures in different parts of the book; other animal hair is 28.1. I thought I had added them together, on page 19.

Mr. CLARK. On page 19, 70,900,000; on page 23, it is 85,600,000 pounds.

Dr. WILSON. Is this a mistake of the printer here?

Mr. CLARK. No; these figures were taken from the census reports. Dr. WILSON. It was 1,400,000 taken from the figures.

Mr. CLARK. That is from the census report?

Dr. WILSON. That part of the census report is 1,400,000, and the other is 28.

Mr. CLARK. There ought to be some explanation of that. I can not tell myself just what it is.

Mr. MONTAGUE. Those are Government figures?

Mr. CLARK. Yes, sir.

Dr. WILSON. Their figures were taken from the Government, but they introduce another lot of figures, that were not the same at all. When you came to look at the figures they were variable, because they were intrastate and interstate. That does not appear in any

thing but 4,000,000 and 28 in the other.

I thought I added those two together when Mr. Clark said it was 14,000,000, but I find that I have not. You can call it what it is, but Mr. Clark does not know, and if he does not know I will not try to tell you, because I do not. He does not use it himself. We believe that absolutely, but some of his friends disagree.

Mr. CLARK. I was just asking one of my men if he knows what kind of hair that is, and he says he does not.

Dr. WILSON. Here is a man with a perfect alibi.

Mr. CLARK. Here is another one that does not know what kind of animal hair that is.

Dr. WILSON. Engaged in the business as you are, intelligent men, you ought to know absolutely.

Mr. CLARK. Not if we don't use it.

Dr. WILSON. You know what somebody else knows?

The CHAIRMAN. This matter can be clarified by asking the proper Government official for an explanation of the difference or discrepancy in the figures, and put it in the testimony.

Dr. WILSON. To go on with the next, reworked wool, 70,900,000. I have got the figures out of the book on page 19. That is correct. Mr. CLARK. Yes.

Dr. WILSON. It makes 23 per cent of reworked wool used that year. Then cotton is 38,300,000 pounds, 12 per cent. The total used I have accounted in the 5 per cent camels' hair, etc., but these are substitute amounts. Forty-five per cent of the substitute used in a month of that year.

Mr. WINSLOW. What year was that?

Dr. WILSON. 1914, was it not?

Mr. CLARK. The census report?

Dr. WILSON. Yes, sir.

Mr. CLARK. Yes.

Dr. WILSON. 1914.

Mr. WINSLOW. That was a pretty hard year, when very nearly all the mills were closed, trying to get released business

Mr. CLARK. In the early part of that year it was extremely dull, before the war.

Mr. WINSLOw. Before August?

Mr. CLARK. Yes, sir.