Oliver Henry talking about the way wool should be presented to the wool grader, and wool being baled by the enormous baling machine

This is Oliver Henry (a wool sorter for 46 years) showing me some of the wool that has been sent in for sorting and grading. We are in the wool shed at Jamieson & Smith, surrounded by huge bags filled with fleeces fresh from the crofts; bales of sorted wool, ready to be taken for scouring and spinning; and the 1970s baling, which compresses roughly 300kg of wool into each big bale. Oliver is talking about how the wool should be presented when it is given in to the wool brokers for grading and sorting, and we are looking at some fleeces which have been sent in all in a jumble. Shetland sheep have quite varied fleeces, and you might have very fine wool in one part of the fleece but rougher wool in another; the rougher stuff gets graded in a certain way and mixed with other wool of a similar grade, to make carpets and suchlike. The softer stuff gets graded differently, and mixed with other wool of a similar high quality. Finer wool fetches a higher price, and so when presenting wool for grading and sorting, you should always make it easy for them to see the best stuff!