Cashmere the fine warmath of the cold world

Cashmere the fine warmath of the cold world.

By  Ghulam Mohyuddin Wani  email mohy@aol.com

Foundation for Advancement of S cience and Technology,KASHMIR.

Email   fastwan@in.com

 

Cashmere is an under coat of goats inhabiting cold serets of the world in Mongolia,china,India,Pakistan,Iran,Uzbakistan,Azerbaijan,Kazakistan,     Afganistan .Many states in the world tried to breed the finr Cashmere goats in their thirst for this valuable and costly fibre.During their rule on kashmir many fine pashmina goats  were imported to United Kingdom.The attempts to breed these goats there still continue in zoological parks and in some fabric oriented firms,However,the best nutrive ,breeding or even technological application failed to raise fine cashmere breeds.The creed of this fibre was so intensive that the infamous documebt of Kashmir sale to the Mahraja who ruled Kahmir until 1947,contained a treaty to supply best cashmere goats and bucks to the throne of the Queen in England along with few fine pashmina {CASHMERE} shawals .

What is cashmere or the Pashmnia.

 This is a fine wool ,grown on the Goats .This wool has finer diameter than the best finr wool breeds of Sheep in the world.Normally a finest wool of the Sheep in the world has a diameter ranging between 18-20 microns.The fineness of the cashmere is around 12-15 microns.The weaving quality often denoted as spinability also excels in this fibre.A gram of processed cashmere can be woven into a fine thread extending upto many miles.The more mile the thread per gram can give speaks of its finess and the price.It is often said and tested in Kashmir that the shawl (a blanket of 5ft x12 ft)MADE OF THIS WOOL CAN PASS through a small golen engagement ring of a man or women.The other character is its warmth .The old saying is that shawl made of pure cashmere can boil a freshly laid hens egg.These characters are specific to the cashmere only.The original fine quality cashmere locally called as Pashmnia in Kashmir is now grown on the goats of many countries as stated.The name cashmere has a little historical background.

Cashmere.

The word is originally derived from Cash mere i e flow of money.In good olden times the silk route was passing through Kashmir and the merchndice used to stay in KASHMIR .It is said most of the grains and dry fruits used to bargained in thee markets of Kashmir.The capital of Kashmir was a cntral place flankened by the hot climatic conditions of  Punjab and the rest of the tropics of present India and Pakistan on one side and cold deserts and temperate climatic zone of the present day Russia,china,afganistan,and erstwhile USSR .Even upto 1947 this route of trade did exist and was named as silk route.With the water transport becoming cheaper and common as ships this original ship route diminished in its essence .New markets replaced it but the traditional

Trade of cashmere still persists.

Cashmere philosophy.

The cashmere is a wool as said and explained above.In the state of Kashmir it is found as undercoat in goats of a particular area of the cold deserts now called as Ladakh.ladakh has peculiar Mongolian features shich resemble Chinese and Japanese feature more than to Kashmiris.Kashmiri features are ayarayian with long roman nose and broad and tall bodies.The cashmere trade has been the monopoly of all these races in an excellent humanistic manner and distribution of the work.The tribial Mongolian  or Chinese /Japanese origin people used to rear these cashmie or pashmnia goats in the high and windy dry cold deserts of the area now UNDER china,Pakistan and India.. Thsi hilly dry and cold region used to rear and breed these goats.The people from valleys of the kashmir used to process  and weave it into fine pashmnia shawls .Later with the expansion of the trade embroidery on it (handy crafts) were learned from the artisans of the Persia and the erstwhile USSR.The reliogion Islam also came to Kashmir through these crafts and trade rather than by sword as is wrongly told.All the inbabitants at the conversion phase were PANDITS but the King was a Budist,who became a muslim on the preachings of a saint from the Hamdan commonly called as SHAH –E—HAMDAN.The mosque is stiil known on his name as SHAH-E-HAMDAN mosque,Such has benn his euphoria that all the Hindus of kashmir valley became Muslims  and it is said a boat full of the scred thread which pundits use to wear round their neck and body were burnt on this occasion.Some of the religious preasts of the temples still continued with their huge lands and properties. Thus a new class of people on economic lines was transformed of this revolution.The artisans,handicrafts and pashmina weavers and trades.The growere remained confined to the dry and cold desert region.The poor took to weaving and crafting works and looms,the rich traded and supported to provide them with raw materials.This practice still continues in the fore walls of the erstwhile walled city.The people around are the peer worshipers and convertes who chant Quranic verse with musical tones unique to Kahsmir only in whole of the world.These people having a common genetic lineage has best religious tolerance and roits were never known to this region till date.The masters from outsides in all times borrowed many myths and tried to divide the society into shere and bukari (LOIN AND GOAT) ,Shia and sunni,rural and urban ,Jammu and kashmir,ladakhand kargil and many more bifurcation outside the perview of this article,which is aimed to narrate the historical background of the cashmere trade and production.

   The finest treads of cashmere or the pashmnia are specific to us and us alone.If some poet sung the famous song which means if heaven is on earth it kashmir it is kashmir.The original song is written in Persian and sounds as ‘FARDOOS BER RUAE ZAMEAN IST HAME ISTOO HAME ISTOO HAMEISTOO.I wish to inscribe and prove it in this paper If fine cashmere(PASHMINA)existed any where in the world it here it is here in cashmere and no where.

I have spent nearly 34 yers of my life researching on goats and my primery focus has been pashmina goats.We had an international collaborative project on DNA fingerprinting of Goats .To my knowledge it was the first attempt in the world to analyse and the origin of these fine wool bearing goats and tell the world beware we have the fineness and we wish to preserve it,

This down fibre less than 13 microns is rare ,but we in cashmere are the only place in this global village who own a few thousand goats who have this fine fibre ranging from 11-13 microns in diameter.In our next paper we shall discuss many details of our published and unpublished research materials for the views.Given below is areview of many authors in the wivikipedia web for general information.Any one wishing to read our original work is referred to encyclopedis of dairy scieves published by elesvier in 2002 and Academic press

 

 

World of cashmere(Pashmina production)

MONGOLIA

Mongolia produces 20% OF Worlds cashmere .It sustains  a third of the country’s population of 2.6 million. There is a news making rounds in the newyork times which reads as and shows some best cashmere goats too’

‘A pungent odor like turpentine coming from sharilj, a wild plant that has taken over the mongo;ian pastures  since the plant is inedible for sheep and goats. Figure 1 from the website is of

Sukhtseren Sharav  a flock owner  of 150 goats and 100 sheep,  the sharilj spreads, he must shepherd them ever higher into the mountains to find fresh grazing land.

The lack of foraging terrain is not Mr. Sharav’s only worry. The price for cashmere, the wool made from the fleece of his goats, has plunged 50 percent from last year. The price of flour, his most essential food staple, has more doubled.

These are hard times for Mongolia’s cashmere industry, which provides jobs and income for a third of the country’s population of 2.6 million and supplies about 20 percent of the world’s market.

To compensate for low prices, herders have been increasing supply by breeding more goats — a classic vicious circle. Mongolia’s goat population is now approaching 20 million, the highest ever recorded.

ENVIRONMENT AND GOATS.

Environmentalists and social scientists say this is destroying biodiversity and pastureland, and undermining herding livelihoods. But goats are hardier than other livestock, breed faster and can survive on sparser resources: so, the more the land is degraded, the more herders are driven to switch from cows, camels or other less destructive herds — another vicious circle

WORLD CASHMERE PRODUCTION

Country              world 1200 tons cashmere

1.China                       60-65%

Mongolia                        20-25 %

  Iran and Afghanistan    15%.

There are small amounts produced in Central Asian nations Krizikistan,kazakistan,azabaijan , Turkey, Kashmir, India Australia, New Zealand and Kashmir( Pakistan},Kashmir{India}

Raw (greasy) cashmere is a mixture of fine underdown (which after processing becomes commercial grade cashmere) and coarse outer guard hair, along with dirt, sand, animal grease, vegetable matter and other impurities. The greasy cashmere is either shorn or combed from the goats. The greasy fiber is bought in the countryside by small, traveling traders. From there it is shipped to dehairing (processing) mills. Once the raw fiber arrives at a processing mill it is sorted with a number of goals in mind.

The first step is to sort out low-grade cashmere and any synthetic contamination that is found. The fiber is then baled and stored. The second sorting is conducted to break down the fiber into colors – White, Lt. Grey, Cream and Brown. During this second sorting, the fiber is again sorted for lower grade material or synthetic contamination that got through the first sorting.

After sorting, the greasy fiber is scoured (washed) to remove the dirt, grease and other impurities. After scouring, the washed cashmere is ready for dehairing. The dehairing machines remove the coarse guard hair from the soft underdown, as the co-mingled mass of fiber passes through a series of dehairing heads on the machine. The design of the machine allows for the underdown to remain in and pass through the machine while the coarse hair is removed. Once the scoured cashmere is passed through a dehairing machine, the residual coarse hair content is brought down to standard 0.5% for weaving grade fiber, and 0.2% or lower for knitting grade fiber. Actually, the residual coarse hair content can be as high as 3% and still be called commercial cashmere. However, at 3% the end uses of the fiber are limited. The ultimate goal of any dehairer is to economically remove most of the coarse hair and impurities while not damaging the length of the underdown.

The value of dehaired cashmere is influenced by several key factors: fineness (measured in microns), length (measured in mm), and color. China produces the finest cashmere in the world. The Chinese also cull out colored goats very aggressively, leaving only natural white goats to harvest from. Consequently Chinese cashmere commands the highest price in the market place, as it is the finest to be bought and it can be dyed to any pastel shade. Mongolian cashmere, while not heavily concentrated on pure white animals, is the next most desirable as it is only slightly coarser than Chinese and has superior length. Iranian and Afghan cashmere are normally the lowest priced material on the market as they are coarser, darker and shorter in length than the other two types.
CASHMERE DIAMETER
Average Micron (unit of measure for the diameter of cashmere fiber):

                (India/Pakistan)- 11-13

Chinese – 14.5-15.5 Mongolian – 16.5-17.5 Iranian/Afghan – 17-18.5

Once the fiber is dehaired, it is ready to be shipped to spinners, weavers and knitters around the world. The 4 traditional, primary markets for cashmere production have been the USA, Europe (UK and Italy), Japan and China itself. The finished products are consumed mostly in the first three markets mentioned, with China consuming smaller amounts of its own finished goods production. The production of finished products, both in knits and wovens, has dramatically shifted to China in the last decade.

The dehaired fiber can then be converted into yarn on the woolen yarn system. If the cashmere is to be converted into worsted yarn it must first pass through one additional processing step, known as “combing”. Combing cashmere is carried out to remove the short fibers, while retaining the longest fibers and allowing them to be put into parallel form. The longer parallel fiber is then known as a “top”. The removed short fiber is called a “noil”. The cashmere top can then be spun into worsted yarn. The yarns are then knitted into garments or woven into cloth.(for datails on our methods of combing and processing please refer punbilcation of wani 2002,wani et al 2003,wani et al 2007,2008)

FINISHED PRODUCT – (firms says it and not me)

Yarns and Ply – Most yarns made for weaving are “single ply”, which means that there is one “end”, or a SINGLE yarn used to weave the cloth. That cloth can be used in overcoats, jackets, scarves, throws, etc…

Ply is a term to describe a yarn that has more than one end to make up the overall yarn. For example, a 2 Ply yarn is made up of 2 individual ends of yarn, a 3 Ply is made up of 3 ends of yarn, etc… There is only one technical reason to ply yarn. When a single end of yarn is made, there are natural thin and thick points to the yarn, particularly in “woolen system” yarns. The woolen yarn making system is used to make most of the yarn that goes into cashmere sweaters.

A spinner achieves his goal of evening out the yarn by 2 plying it. He takes 2 individual ends of yarn, and wraps, or plies, them together to make one end of 2 plied yarn. If the yarn is more than a 2 ply, the only thing achieved is making the yarn, and therefore the resulting garment or article, heavier. There is no other improvement that 3, 4, 5 or more plies will give to a yarn. It only adds weight to the end product. Multiple plies are necessary to make a heavier gauge (gg) sweater.

Most cashmere sweaters in the market are 12gg. They are made on 12gg machines and have a relatively fine stitch. To make a garment more bulky, manufacturers will move to heavier gauge machines, such a 7gg or 5gg knitting machine. The stitches are larger and more pronounced. A larger ply yarn is needed to knit on heavier gauge machines. Therefore, a 4 ply, or even a 6 ply yarn will be needed for the construction of such garments.
(This   is  from  free  web reference)