Wool grown in this region in pastoral times was shorn in Spring, and carried the Summer’s dust and the Winter’s mud in the fleece. Once shorn. it was transported to a port, then shipped by weight to the woollen mills in England. The weight of the dirt in the wool added considerably to the cost of the freight. The mills did not have the machinery to handle the dirty colonial wool, and in the early years of the region’s settlement, greasy wool was almost unsaleable. The growers had two options: they could wash the wool on the sheep, or they could wash the shorn wool.