Cotton Manufactures

The spinning of cotton yarn and manufacture of cloth have been practiced from remote antiquity. Hero dot us refers to the cotton of India and also states that the Indian contingent of Xerxes' army wore cotton drawers. It was known in Arabia in the time of Mahomet 627, and brought to Europe by his followers. The 10th century saw it introduced into Spain, the 13th into China, and the 14th into Italy. In the 17th century cotton fabrics were so largely imported into England from India as to interfere with the linen, woolen, and silk interests, and the importation of cotton goods was forbidden by an Act of Parliament in 1700. It imposed a fine of £5 on the wearer of cotton and £20 on the vender. The progre of a bale of cotton to the condition of thread or yarn may be stated as follows: 1. Sorted and mixed, to give a uniform quality. 2. Scutched or Willowed, to tear the ma es apart and open up the fiber. 3. Cleaned and batted, by a combined tearing and blowing action. 4. The bat is further treated in a similar manner, received on a wire gauze drum, pre ed into thin sheets and delivered as a lap upon a roller. 5. Carded, to straighten the fibers and delivered in fleeces or slivers. 6. Doubled and drawn to elongate the ribbon and complete the parallelism. 7. Roved, to slightly twist the cord and wind it on bobbins. 8. Finely roved and stretched by the bobbin-and-fly frame or the stretcher mule, and delivered on bobbins. 9. Spun in the throstle which continually draws, twists and winds the yarn for warp, or in the mule which draws out and twists lengths of ab. 56 in., and then winds upon the spindle for weft. 10. Wound, doubled, and singed for the weaver. The greater quantity of the yarn spun is woven into plain cotton cloth, while the remainder is used as warps in woolen and worsted goods or for knitting into underwear. In 1890 the number of spindles in operation in the U. S. was 14,188,103, in Great Britain 43,750,000, on the continent of Europe 24,575,000, and in India 3,270,000.