Botany Mills Inc. presents, The Story of Wool. A Corcoran Production. This 1940s era, color film shows us the not-so-delicate shearing process of sheep in the Midwest. We watch as a new generation of lambs are born and set out on the range. The film begins on the open ranges of the American Rockies. Sheep graze peacefully. A sheepherder and his dog 1:10. The sheep herder looks at the clouds to gauge the weather 1:23. The sheep are in the winter pastures being fed by the herder 1:45. The ewes and their lambs are seen 1:54. A horse grazes with the sheep 2:09. The snow was melted in the fresh smell of meadow fills the air. Baby sheep trot along 2:28. A dead coyote is found 2:32. A mama lamb returns for her baby 2:46. The final drive to the lambing grounds of the shearing bins 3:07. Sheep cross a bridge 3:22. The main ranch is shown 3:42. Various flocks converge on the ranch with the help of the herders 3:5 to. The sheepdog helps keep the sheep moving in the right direction 4:00. The sheep are penned in walk-through the corral 4:16. A wool buyer selects-year-olds from the flock 4:25. The sheep crowd together 4:40. The actual shearing is done by itinerant hands 5:00. Workers, usually Mexican, are paid by the sheep – about $.25 per sheep. In an eight-hour day a worker can sheer between hundred and 25 and hundred and 50 sheep. The ewes get a rough handling from the shearers 5:27. The sheep are bound by all 4 feet 5:34. Eight shearers work on each side of the shearing truck 5:45. The shearing machinery is gasoline driven, and powers all the clippers 5:58. The fleece holds together pretty well as it comes off in one piece 6:05. Each police will weigh between eight and 10 pounds. The wool is filled with tics and brush gathered over one year in the fields. Each fleece is folded up in wrapped with paper twine 6:52. The fleece is then tossed to the ”sacker” who stuffs as much as he can into the sack 6:58. The bags are sewn up – each bag holding between 40 and 45 fleeces and weighs about 400 pounds 7:14. The bags are stacked in the open 7:25. Each bag is ”branded” with the same brand that the sheep get on the range 7:35. The sheep are eager to get out of the shearing bins 7:55. Pregnant sheep returned to the fields 8:15. An improvised ambulance drawn by a Jeep goes around picking up the ewes and their lambs 8:20. A lamb, only two minutes old, tries to walk 8:35. A baby lamb is carried by one leg into the cart 8:48. The mother licks her baby 8:55. Lambs nurse at their mothers teat – in the case of twins, the ewe will not nurse one lamb without the other 9:00. This keeps one lamb from getting all the milk supply from the ewe 9:09. The famous Botany Wooly Lamb 9:24. Baby lamb looks at the camera 9:24. The improvised ambulance is kept busy going between the lambing fields and the ranch 9:32. Mother and offspring are put in private pens to get acquainted 9:40. Orphan lambs become the family’s pets and are fed by bottle 10:00. When a lamb dies at birth the jacket of the dead lamb will be put on an orphan so that the mother of the dead lamb will feed and rear the orphan 10:18. The baby lambs are weaned and get used to their new diet of grass 10:57. The heavy sacks are carefully loaded on the truck and their weight evenly distributed 11:20. The truck pulls out of the ranch laden with wool sacks 11:25. Most of the wool processing mills are in the East – a large truck backs up to empty its wool sacks 11:36. Each bag is numbered with its weight and are loaded onto railway cars 12:15. The railroad car is labeled, “Botany” 12:25. The train leaves the station 12:33. The sheepherder looks over his flock.

Botany Mills was a Passaic, New Jersey, manufacturer of textiles, which was organized in 1887. It merged with Continental Textile Co., Ltd., in January 1927. Botany Mills continued to have a controlling interest in both Botany Worsted Mills and Garfield Worsted Mills. The company was a key target of the 1926 Passaic Textile Strike, which lasted almost a year. The business is significant for having survived the Great Depression while continuing to be a leader in its field in the decades afterward. In late 1955, Botany left the textile business and transferred its Passaic plant to an affiliate company, Clarence Worsted. Botany transitioned into real estate, product licensing and cosmetics.

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This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD and 2k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com