The wool-stapler makes his rounds as soon as shearing is completed; his first call is to examine the fleeces, and if a deal results a second visit follows for weighing and packing. He is of course well up in market values, probably receiving a telegram every morning, when trade is active, from the great wool-trade centre, Bradford. He is not unwilling to give a special price for quality, but will sometimes stipulate for secrecy as to the sum, because farmers, naturally, compare notes, and everyone thinks himself entitled to the top price no matter how inferior or badly washed his wool may be. The Bradford stapler has the northern method of speech, which sounds unfamiliar in the midland and southern counties, but it is not so cryptic as that of the Scottish wool trade. The following colloquy is reported as having passed between two Scots over a deal in woollen cloth. _Buyer_. "'Oo?" _Seller_. "Ay, 'oo." _Buyer_. "A' 'oo?" _Seller_. "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 £350, so the fall of three-quarters of the value was a serious loss.