“ The merchant’s buyer must, as we have seen, be able to judge the amount of shrinkage within a very small fraction, he must know the demand for each quality of wool so that he may be sure not to pay more than he can sell for, and, what is more, he must be able to forecast the future with a certain amount of accuracy in order to make his profit. Furthermore, the merchant must be constantly on his guard against doing more business than his capital warrants, while at the same time, unless he makes every dollar work, his business will in normal times fail to show him a profit. ”

“ So far as the manufacturers, or mills of various sorts, are concerned, there is one striking difference about the paper of woolen and worsted mills as against cotton mill notes which appear in the open market; cotton mill paper, except in the case of the strongest mills, usually bears the endorsement of the commission house which sells the mill’s product, but this is not as a rule the case with woolen and worsted mill paper. The reason is that a large number of the wool manufacturing establishments sell direct to wholesalers and jobbers, and have no close affiliation with a selling-house. ”

“ In addition, the raising of raw silk has been built up principally in countries where there is a system of home industry—a social and industrial system never developed in the United States. However, although America has never been a factor in the producing of the raw material, it has risen to a place of utmost importance in the manufacture of the finished textile. Immense quantities of raw silk are imported from abroad—principally Japan, Italy, and China—and its conversion into the finished products constitutes a most important part of our industry. ”

“ A wool merchant’s business is largely based on his estimate of the future. There are no “future” markets for wool as there are for cotton and silk, and the wool dealer cannot therefore protect himself by hedging. Were it not for the fact that he assumes a risk which neither the grower nor, in most cases, the manufacturer is able to take, he could not maintain his position as the middleman. ”

“ The merchant, while he is a middle man and therefore incurs the usual anathema, performs a variety of very essential services. At the time of the clip he sends his buyers to the wool producing centers and buys the clip for cash, then he ships it to his warehouse, grades it, and sells to the mills on credit. Obviously he finances a very important part of the production, and is furthermore essential, because he knows the demand, which the wool-grower does not, and the supply—of which the mill is usually ignorant. ”

“ Sheep raising is, as we have seen, chiefly carried on on the borderlines of civilization. As civilized life encroaches upon the pasture lands the flocks are driven gradually further and further into hitherto uninhabited regions. The population of the world is steadily increasing, and the available grazing acres are constantly being reduced as the world becomes more thickly populated. Also, as the population increases, the demand for clothing and food increases, so that, on the face of it, it would seem that the production of wool would decrease while the demand grew constantly larger. ”

“ In most cases, however, woolen yarns receive their color after the wool is scoured and before it goes into the carding machine. In worsted manufacture the common procedure is to dye the top after it has been combed. In this way a uniform color is obtained, whereas it is exceedingly difficult to obtain the same color from two vats in piece-dyeing. Some materials are both wool and piece-dyed, the second dye being given to the cloth. This is done in cases where a peculiarly fast color is desired, or where the cloth contains separate materials such as wool and cotton. ”

“ In contrast to the tendency towards unification in spinning and weaving is the ever-increasing segregation of the converting plants. The rise of the merchant-converter, the growing demand for a great variety of finishes, and the fact that converting is very much cheaper on a large scale, have all brought about an increasing tendency on the part of the mill to sell its cloth in the gray, or to have it finished on commission. ”

“ The introduction of machine shearing has made it possible for one man to shear from 175 to 200 sheep in a day, and the fleece is very much more evenly clipped than formerly. Some merino breeds, known as type A, have so many folds of loose skin that machine shearing is not feasible, but except for these animals, and some of the type B or Rambouillet Merinos, almost all sheep are now shorn by machine, that is, where they are raised in numbers. Sheep raising in this country is not pursued with nearly so much care as, for instance, in Australia. ”

“ Various fabrics require different grades of yarn, just as different finenesses of yarn must be spun from varying grades of cotton. The processes preparatory to spinning vary, not only with the counts to be spun, but with the use to which the yarn is to be put. Ordinary coarse and medium yarns for weaving usually follow one process, while fine counts for weaving, or knitting yarn, or coarse yarn made from long-staple cotton such as that used for tire-duck, go through a different preparation. ”

“ Weaving Gray Goods
Principle of Weaving
The modern power loom represents one of the most remarkable achievements of industrial development. Into its perfection have gone the inventions and improvements of centuries, and volumes could, and [Pg 32] have been written on the subject of modern weaving. Nevertheless, the old-fashioned hand-loom has not yet gone out of existence, and still finds its use in the development of new designs.
Spooling
Weaving is, of course, the process whereby yarn is made into cloth, and its fundamental principle is that of the warp and weft structure. ”

“ Silk raising, or sericulture, has been a leading industry in Japan and China for a great many years, while the Near East and such countries [Pg 99] as France and Italy have also played a part in the industry—but to a lesser degree. A great deal of this work, particularly in Japan and China, has been carried on as a home industry, but with the growth of modern business methods more and more of the silk raising has come into the hands of companies operating on a highly scientific basis. ”

“ While we shall discuss the geographical distribution of the industry in a later chapter, it is worthy of note here that the feature of the period beginning about 1880 and extending to the present time, was the gradual growth of the spinning and weaving industry in the South. The social and economic system in the Southern states before the abolition of slavery made those states entirely agrarian, but as soon as a recovery from the war was accomplished, manufacturing, and particularly cotton manufacturing, grew up surprisingly fast. ”

“ The large cotton merchants fulfill a very essential function in that they are responsible for the concentration of the raw material and for its redistribution into the proper channels of manufacture. They maintain branches and representatives throughout the entire cotton growing areas and are directly connected by wire with all the important exchanges. By far the bulk of their buying is done after the close of the New York Exchange from local and intermediate buyers who during the day have been acquiring mixed lots of all sorts. ”

“ According to the French system, which is employed in this country only for very soft fine yarns, no twist is given to the sliver until the actual spinning begins; and the spinning is then usually done on mules, which in this country are rarely used in the manufacture of worsted yarn. We shall discuss these machines when we come to woolens. According to the most common procedure in this country, the roving box not only draws, but imparts a certain amount of twist to the yarn. This is done by winding the yarn from horizontal spools on to vertical spindles. ”

“ The tensile strength of a wool fibre is low, its elasticity high. The length of the fibre varies from one to over ten inches, and the diameter from .0018 to .004 inches. The better a wool the less like it is to a hair. Generally speaking, the finer the wool, the shorter the fibre, but length alone would not indicate the grade. Pure merino and high cross-bred wools have a close wave, known as crimp, which increases the elasticity and is therefore desirable from a spinning standpoint. ”

“ The principal use of spun silk is in mixed fabrics, in conjunction with wool, cotton, or raw silk, the spun silk thread generally being used as filling rather than warp. The better grades are made into velvet and plush and various types of knit goods. Although high quality spun silk often has the strength and wearing quality of thrown silk, it never can compete with the latter in regard to lustre. ”

“ In due course the boll bursts, exposing the mass of fluffy fibre from which the plant derives its extraordinary value. The superiority of cotton over other vegetable fibres, such as hemp or flax, is in the natural twist, which makes it inherently adaptable to spinning. The single fibre consists of a hollow tube having transverse joints at irregular intervals, and this tube, when dry, has a tendency to flatten out and curl. The more of this natural elasticity is found in the fibre the better it is for spinning purposes, and an immature fibre is for this reason unsatisfactory. ”

“ Consequently the local store-keeper, from whom the planters buy their supplies, usually extends credit in the form of an open account and so becomes the first middleman. Not infrequently the store-keeper will accept cotton rather than money in settlement of his accounts, and where he follows this practice he becomes what is known as a local buyer. When he has accumulated sufficient cotton he sells either to an intermediate buyer, or to the buyer for some merchant or mill. ”

“ Strength,—elasticity and tensile strength,—is again one of the mill’s prerequisites. The usual buyer’s test for fibre vitality is to compress a sample in the hand to see if it will return to its former shape. The importance of length is that it governs the fineness of the yarn to be spun, while grades affect the finish of the cloth. We shall see later that mills cannot buy mixed lots, but must have even-running grades of fixed staple. ”

“ The greatest part of the American crop consists of the Upland variety, although, as we have noted, there is a small but important crop of Sea Island in the Southern Atlantic states. Another long staple species, known as Pimas, has recently been introduced in Arizona, and the alluvial soil of Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana has produced still other desirable species, locally known as “Rivers,” “Peelers,” and “Benders.” Before we consider the relative manufacturing merits of the various kinds of cotton, it would perhaps be well to consider briefly how the crop is grown. ”

“ Fulling, the next and very important process, consists in passing the material through closed or partially enclosed boxes, in which the cloth is run through soap solutions and then forced through rollers. The result of fulling is to shrink the material and give more body to it. It is chiefly in order to be able to do this that the maker of woolens wants the fibres in his yarn to lie criss-cross, so that in the fulling mill their serrated edges will felt and interlock with each other. The amount of fulling done depends upon the shrinkage desired. ”

“ Whereas most wool yarn is woven into cloth, there is also the knitting process, in which the individual threads are interlaced into a regular fabric without warp and weft structure. The work is performed on a sort of loom, called the stockinette frame, upon which the yarns are arranged in parallel order and uniform distances apart. The actual knitting closely resembles hand knitting, and is done entirely by automatic mechanism. ”

“ Carpet weaving is one of the large branches of the woolen industry, and for this purpose the coarsest and longest fibred wools (common, braid, and carpet wools) are usually employed. These wools readily lend themselves to the manufacture of a coarse thick yarn, which in turn produces a thick, durable material. The thickness of a carpet is known as the pile. ”

“ There are many differences between weaving worsteds and woolens, but for our purposes we may consider the process the same, as in a general way it is. Some cloths are woven with a cotton warp and a woolen yarn filling, the warp being carefully concealed. Woolen cloths are more frequently woven with a backing than worsteds. This means that either there is a double warp, a double weft, or both. The object of backing is usually to add strength and warmth to the material, and the lower side is therefore often woven of coarser yarn. ”

“ The raw silk is reeled on travellers in hanks known as skeins and varying from 50 to 100 grams in weight, which are taken off by the reeling girl and the ends of the thread tied up to facilitate the work at the mill. Before leaving the filature it is also subjected to critical tests and examinations for size, winding, cleanliness, irregularities, etc. The color of raw silk as it comes off the cocoon and is reeled into skeins is either white or yellow, though some sorts have a brownish or greenish tinge. ”