Felt is a textile material that is produced by matting, condensing and pressing fibers together. Felt can be made of natural fibers such as wool or animal fur, or from synthetic fibers such as petroleum-based acrylic or acrylonitrile or wood pulp-based rayon. Blended fibers are also common.
Mohair is usually a silk-like fabric or yarn made from the hair of the Angora goat. Both durable and resilient, mohair is notable for its high luster and sheen, which has helped gain it the nickname the "Diamond Fiber", and is often used in fiber blends to add these qualities to a textile. Mohair takes dye exceptionally well. Mohair is warm in winter as it has excellent insulating properties, while remaining cool in summer due to its moisture wicking properties. It is durable, naturally elastic, flame resistant and crease resistant. It is considered to be a luxury fiber, like cashmere, angora and silk, and is usually more expensive than most wool that is produced by sheep.
Angora hair or Angora fibre refers to the downy coat produced by the Angora rabbit. While the names of the source animals are similar, Angora fibre is distinct from mohair, which comes from the Angora goat. Angora fibre is also distinct from cashmere, which comes from the cashmere goat. Angora is known for its softness, thin fibres, and what knitters refer to as a halo (fluffiness). It is also known for its silky texture. It is much warmer and lighter than wool due to the hollow core of the angora fibre. It also gives them their characteristic floating feel.
Mulesing is the removal of strips of wool-bearing skin from around the breech (buttocks) of a sheep to prevent the parasitic infection flystrike (myiasis). The wool around the buttocks can retain feces and urine, which attracts flies. The scar tissue that grows over the wound does not grow wool, so is less likely to attract the flies that cause flystrike. Mulesing is a common practice in Australia for this purpose, particularly on highly wrinkled Merino sheep. Mulesing is considered by some to be a skilled surgical task. Mulesing can only affect flystrike on the area cut out and has no effect on flystrike on any other part of the animal's body.
Pashmina is a fine type of cashmere wool. The textiles made from it were first woven in Kashmir. The name comes from Persian: پشمینه / pašmina, meaning "made from wool". Pashmina came to be known as 'cashmere' in the West because Europeans first encountered this fibre in Kashmir. The wool comes from a number of different breeds of the cashmere goat; such as the changthangi or Kashmir pashmina goat from the Changthang Plateau in Tibet and part of the Ladakh region, the malra from the Kargil area in the Kashmir region, the chegu from Himachal Pradesh in the Himalayas of northern India, and the chyangara or Nepalese pashmina goat from Nepal. Often shawls called shahmina are made from this material in Kashmir and Nepal; these shawls are hand spun and woven from the very fine cashmere fibre.
The Great Southern Region is one of the nine regions of Western Australia, as defined by the Regional Development Commissions Act 1993, for the purposes of economic development. It is a section of the larger South Coast of Western Australia and neighbouring agricultural regions.
Cotswold sheep is a breed of domestic sheep originating in the Cotswold hills of the southern midlands of England. It is a dual-use breed providing both meat and wool. As at 2009, this long-woolled breed is relatively rare, and is categorised in the UK as "minority" by the Rare Breeds Survival Trust.
E. Thomas is an Italian fabric mill established in Brusimpiano in 1922 by Ernesto Thomas. The mill's fabrics include a range of blends combining wool with silk, Chinese and Mongolian cashmere, mohair and linen. The mill is located on the Italian shore of Lake Lugano.
The Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938 was legislation in the United States that was enacted as an alternative and replacement for the farm subsidy policies, in previous New Deal farm legislation, that had been found unconstitutional. The act revived the provisions in the previous Agriculture Adjustment Act, with the exception that the financing of the law's programs would be provided by the Federal Government and not a processor's tax, and was also enforced as a response to the success of the Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act of 1936.
The Agricultural Act of 1954 is a United States federal law that, among other provisions, authorized a Commodity Credit Corporation reserve for foreign and domestic relief.
Animal fibers are natural fibers that consist largely of particular proteins. Instances are silk, hair/fur and feathers. The animal fibers used most commonly both in the manufacturing world as well as by the hand spinners are wool from domestic sheep and silk. Also very popular are alpaca fiber and mohair from Angora goats. Unusual fibers such as Angora wool from rabbits and Chiengora from dogs also exist, but are rarely used for mass production.
Moxon Huddersfield Ltd is a high-end British textile manufacturer of luxury worsted and woollen suiting fabrics. It is located at Yew Tree Mills, Holmbridge, near Holmfirth, Kirklees in Yorkshire.
An S number on the label of wool suits or other tailored apparel, wool fabric, or yarn, indicates the fineness of the wool fiber used in the making of the apparel, as measured by its maximum diameter in micrometres. Fiber fineness is one of the factors determining the quality and performance of a wool product. In recent years it has also become an important marketing device used by many mills, garment makers, and retailers. The S number appears as a plural with an s or 's following the number, such as 100s or 100's.
The Sheep Promotion, Research, and Information Act of 1994 enabled domestic sheep producers and feeders and importers of sheep and sheep products to develop, finance, and carry out a nationally coordinated program for sheep and sheep product promotion, research, and information.
In United States agriculture policy, Loan deficiency payments are a farm income support program first authorized by the Food Security Act of 1985 that makes direct payments, equivalent to marketing loan gains, to producers who agree not to obtain nonrecourse loans, even though they are eligible. Loan deficiency payments are available under the 2002 farm bill for wheat, corn, grain sorghum, barley, oats, upland cotton, rice, soybeans, other oilseeds, wool, mohair, honey, dry peas, lentils, and small chickpeas.
The National Wool Act of 1954 provided for a new and permanent price support program for wool and mohair to encourage increased domestic production through incentive payments.
Marketing assistance loans are nonrecourse loans made available to producers of loan commodities under the 2002 farm bill. The new law largely continued the commodity loan programs as they were under previous law. Loan rate caps are specified in the law. Marketing loan repayment provisions apply when market prices drop below the loan rates. For farmers who forgo the use of marketing assistance loans, loan deficiency payment (LDP) rules apply.
The incentive payments are direct payments made under the National Wool Act to producers of wool and mohair, which were similar to deficiency payments made to producers of grains and cotton. The incentive payment rate was the percentage needed to bring the national average return to producers up to the annually set national support price. Each producer’s direct payment was the payment rate times the market receipts. Producers with higher market receipts got larger support payments. This created an incentive to increase output and to improve quality.
The South African Wool Board was constituted in 1946 as an independent and non-profit making statutory board under the Wool Act in response to the rapid rise synthetic replacements for natural wool fibre. It was wound up in 1997.
